There is a bookbinding site called Talas that has a storefront in Brooklyn. So today I embarked upon a 6 hour adventure to Brooklyn from Queens…and I’m totally worn out from over 3 hours sitting on the bus. The store was great; it was hard to resist buying more than I did. I went in with a specific list of items that I’ve not been able to find anywhere in Texas.

I’m excited about the scraps of bookcloth that I found! They are so much prettier in person. The longest one is some Japanese cloth, in a rich eggplant/aubergine purple. The tan is bonded leather, which was the only kind of leather I could afford…and also the least intimidating. The black in the middle is velvet, the silver is this plasticky stuff (I’m curious to see how well it works), the little black roll is also bonded leather. The blue-gray roll and the shimmery red-burgundy are also Japanese, I think. So sad that I have to wait until I’m back in Texas to play with them!