Bookbinding: Slipcases

Thin Ice Press: the York Centre for Print is running a Bookbinding: Slipcases workshop on Saturday 24 October, from 10:00 to 17:00. The session is all about making a cloth-covered slipcase for a book, so if you've got a particular volume you've been wanting to protect, this is the time to bring it along and build something proper for it.

It's worth knowing where you're heading. Thin Ice Press is a pressroom, museum and gallery tucked into the garden of St Anthony's Hall, right in the heart of York. It's a working space dedicated to keeping traditional printing alive, and you can see that history on the walls: there's an 1845 Crown Columbian press, 115 cases of wood type, and 100 cases of metal type, among other treasures. It's also the new home for parts of the DeLittle of York collection, from the last and most successful wood letter manufacturers in the UK.

Beyond the museum side, it's a busy studio. They run workshops in letterpress, linocut, risograph and bookbinding, alongside memberships, equipment hire, events and exhibition space, and they hold regular printing clubs. You can drop in to explore the shop and gallery or take a free tour, and people join as members to use the studio themselves. The director is Professor Helen Smith.

The slipcase workshop runs from 10:00 to 17:00 on Saturday 24 October at Thin Ice Press, Peasholme Green, York YO1 7PW, and costs £140.