Webbcrafts

Marking Your Page

A New Book

Today a beautiful new book arrived through the post. The smell of it’s pages inspired the need for a beautiful new bookmark to go with it. Bookmarks have a fascinating history and the making of one connects our thoughts to long gone crafters.

History of bookmarks

The first bookmarks were used throughout the medieval period, circa C5th to C15th century, consisting usually of a small parchment strip attached to the edge of folio (or a piece of cord attached to headband).

As the first printed books were quite rare and valuable, it was determined early on that something was needed to mark one’s place in a book without causing its pages any harm. Some of the earliest bookmarks were used at the end of the sixteenth century, and  Queen Elizabeth 1st was one of the first to own one.

Modern bookmarks are available in a huge variety of materials with a multitude of designs and styles from which to choose. Many are made of cardboard or heavy paper, but they are also constructed of leather, ribbon, fabric, felt, steel, wire, tin, beads, wood, plastic, vinyl, silver, gold and other precious metals, some decorated with gemstones.

The first detached, and therefore collectible, bookmarkers began to appear in the 1850s. One of the first references to these is found in Mary Russell Mitford’s Recollections of a Literary Life (1852):

“I had no marker and the richly bound volume closed as if instinctively.”

Note the abbreviation of ‘bookmarker’ to ‘marker’. The modern abbreviation is usually ‘bookmark’. Historical bookmarks can be very valuable, and are sometimes collected along with other paper ephemera.

Most nineteenth-century bookmarks were intended for use in bibles and prayer books and were made of ribbon, woven silk or leather.

I made a beaded one.

Beaded Bookmark

Materials:

Some Dos and Don’ts

• Don’t use silver beading wire…it breaks
• Don’t use cheap beads…the holes aren’t uniformly drilled
• Don’t use earing posts…they don’t bend well
• —————————————————————
• Do have a selection of needles ready
• Do use a bead spinner, it makes threading quicker…as long as you don’t use cheap beads
• Do use a good quality silver wire to make your ends…it doesn’t break

It’s up to you

You can make any pattern of beads, just using the beads that you have collected by keeping old jewellery, or buying from a charity shop. Your ends need to be finished attractively, but you can experiment with twisted wire and end beads to achieve the effect required.

It is helpful to have the small jewellery pliers, but if you haven’t got them then raid a tool box. The smallest pliers work well.

I had about three goes at this bookmark before I was satisfied…if at first you don’t succeed, try a different technique.

I'll Keep Your Place