I ****ing love making handouts.
I ****ing love making handouts. I could make handouts all day long. I love doing rough drawings to organize my thoughts. I love making final pen and ink sewing diagrams and scanning them into my laptop and tweaking them until they look just right.
I ****ing love making handouts. I love bringing all of my images into Indesign and combining them with explanatory text. I love italicizing the sewing instructions and formatting the headings.
I love it. I ****ing love it.
I love tweaking the text in excruciating detail.
And then, when it is all over, I ****ing love printing the new handouts out and assembling little kits of components, fresh and ready to go.
Sometimes, when I am feeling particularly decadent, I turn my handouts into little booklets. Who doesn’t ****ing love that? Booklets mean hours of fun dealing with imposition and standardization. When I moved to the UK, I suddenly had to reformat all of my old handouts from standard US letter into A4 size paper. Did I mind? HA! Do you mind when someone gives you a surprise birthday party?
Look! here is a handout in accordion form:
Sometimes, when I am teaching, and I am about to hand out my handouts, I get a little rush of pride and excitement like a child who is about to recite a poem in a school play. I wait for my students to gasp and congratulate me, and then, when it doesn’t happen, I don’t even care. That Is how much I ****ing love making handouts.
Sometimes I think I ****ing love making handouts so much that I should not limit myself to bookbinding, but rather strike out into the larger world. I could offer people detailed and illustrated instruction in making and eating a sandwich, or putting on a pair of cowboy boots. But that is for another day. For now: day two of the Long and Link Stitch intensive I am teaching at the London Centre for Book Arts.
(I really do ****ing love it, you know.)
19 comments on “I ****ing love making handouts.”
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Big Jump Press 
POST!!!
I ****ing love that you love making handouts. And I effing love this post.
Thanks, Kevin! I ****ing love your comment.
i ****ing would love these handouts! Are they available?
Hi Florian! I am about to put bookbinding kits, complete with handouts, online for sale. stay tuned for details!
Idea: Sell a kit with just handouts!
you got it!
great post, i love making the lesson plans, but not the handouts. structuring the class is what i love, layering the learning.
I make little wax animals for my workshops. I ****king love it.
Ha! Amazing. Any chance you’ll put some photos up on your blog?
So can I look forward to some great handouts at West Dean??
Su
Absolutely! Get ready for some serious handout action! Although my printing handouts are less complex, sadly.
After taking bookbinding classes both with and without handouts, I really appreciate instructors who make them. I don’t think a class is truly complete without a handout and a perfectly tweaked one is even better!
Agreed! I love getting handouts from instructors, and having them means that I can revisit a structure more easily in my own time. Thanks for your message, Amy.
love the new layout lady! great change now that you have so many posts and material up there.
Thanks Kirin! I am pleased with it. Now go update your blog! Tell me more about the myth of main street and mail order store fronts!
How about a handout on how to make handouts?
You never know. . .
Gotta say, you’re heightening my expectations for your workshop at PBI. No pressure, but those handouts best be fantastic.
BOOKLET. That’s all I’m going to say.