Made a tiny box to keep all the business card games I have together.

So goodbye Jim, and thank you. I don't think I'll ever meet someone quite like you again. The bookbinding community will be poorer without you.

Jim would keep his books for years and sometimes he would just undo a bunch of his work, make it a little better, and put it back together. It's something I think about all the time when I'm less than satisfied with how something has turned out.

Jim was always happy to not only teach others but was also incredibly eager to learn from anyone. While toolmaking was the main reason I went to learn from him the biggest lesson I took away was that it's okay to go back in and fix a book that you weren't happy with.

Jim also made paper from old firehoses by bleaching the fibers in the sun for years. He fermented hemp underneath his house to later make into paper. As a 27 year old at the time I wasn't used to the idea of just leaving some things for a few years before you could use them.

Part of that was making bone tools which are frequently used in bookbinding. Jim lived in northern Idaho, known for its elk and moose and he get bones from local hunters or pick up road kill to amass a frankly startling amount of bones. Jim made the finest bone folders in the world.

A titan of the bookbinding community died this past week: Jim Croft. I went to learn from him at his homestead in Idaho way back in 2011. It was a two week course making all part of the book, from making the paper, tanning the leather, splitting the wooden boards, everything.

He makes the paper, hews the wood to make the covers, he would make the thread except his wife Melody is a far better spinner than he is. He tans the leather himself. Jim is relentlessly curious and has an abundance of energy.

He grows the hemp and cotton for the paper, the linen for the thread, the wood for the covers. He made a stamp mill powered by the stream on his property to beat the fibers. He uses bones from elk that local hunters hunt to make traditional bone bookbinding tools.

Jim Croft is an incredible binder, an amazing teacher, and a wonderful man. He lives off grid in northern Idaho but after many years some friends have finally put up a site for him. Jim specializes in medieval style bindings and even goes beyond that. He makes as many aspects of the book as he can.

Among the cataloged today: Rosenstrasse, Transgender Deathmatch Legend 2, The Stygian Library, and Going for Broke.