Vellum

One of our favourite materials at Libre Livre is vellum; animal hide which has been soaked, limed and dried. This fantastic translucent material has been used by scribes since Roman times - it has been suggested that it first came into use by the ancient Greeks as an alternative to papyrus, which was confined to Egypt.

Used for a range of binding styles perhaps the most famous application is as "limp vellum bindings" which served as the medieval filofax. Libre Livre offers limp vellum bindings, including some with Scandinavian style rigid wooden spines, examples of which can be found on our website at Libre Livre

For a magnificent example of a lavish vellum binding click here

This weekend the Head Marbler and I are both going on a course on basic wood-block techniques run by Carolyn Trant. I'll let you know how we get on