Bookbinding Classes
Come to one of our Workshops
Our classes usually run two Saturdays a month from 10am until 4pm creating a range of products. You can take our courses all the way through Introduction and Intermediate to the Advanced class, or you could try Box Making, Book Repair or Coptic Sewing. We only have a couple of classes left before Christmas but the schedule for the New Year is organised already and bookable online in our shop. We are surprised at how quickly we are getting bookings for 2017 already so get in fast to avoid disappointment!
We usually only accomodate up to 8 people on a day - we like to keep it intimate! We only have limited space in the workshop - there are 8 or 9 of us working in the bindery on a regular basis so it's only really designed for us! It also means that you get a lot more one-on-one attention at the class which is better for you!
John, our Master Bookbinder, and myself are usually the ones who teach the classes. John did his apprenticeship straight from school and has been working in the industry all his life. As there are very few training programmes available for bookbinding John has been responsible for training everyone in our workshop on the job, so he is the ideal person to teach anyone from absolute beginner to more advanced levels.
Before I started working here at Downie Allison Downie, several years ago now, I took a couple of classes with John purely to feed an interest for beautiful handmade sketchbooks which began for me at art school. Just seeing the workshop and all the things going on here is quite inspiring and many of the peole who have previously joined us for classes now bind or repair books as a hobby at home, some even make a little money from selling the books they make!
As handmade, and small craft industries are becoming more valued it is a great time to try out a new skill and learn to appreciate the time and effort which goes into creating a hand made product. Hand binding uses very little equipment so it is ideal to do from your kitchen table, and the variety of what you can produce is endless!
Classes for Christmas
As Christmas is approaching you can of course buy vouchers for our classes as gifts! The vouchers can be used to book any class and so the lucky recipient can come to a class of their choice.
Classes for Groups
We can also organise classes for groups of varying sizes, either in our workshop or at your venue. You can read about the class we ran at the Glasgow School of Art a short while back in this article.
If you are interested in organising a class, or even just a talk about bookbinding, for your group then you can contact us for more information and we will do our best to accomodate your needs and suggest options for you.