A workshop with a sewing frame and a window facing north.

Kaarna means bark in Finnish. We chose it for the way bark protects what grows inside, which is not a bad description of a cover.

The studio started a few years ago in a shared courtyard building in Helsinki, after a long period of binding books as a hobby in a kitchen. The room is plain: a heavy oak bench, a nipping press that came from a retired printer, a small stove for heating paste, and shelves of paper sorted by grain direction.

Materials

• Linen thread, waxed by hand before sewing.
• Papers from European mills, chosen for long grain and acid-free stock.
• Book cloth in muted natural dyes, plus offcuts of Finnish wool felt for lining boxes.
• Vegetable-tanned leather, bought in small quantities from a tannery in the Nordic region.

Principles

We prefer repair to replacement. A book that has survived eighty years deserves a careful conversation before anyone removes its original boards. Whenever we alter something old, we document the work with photographs and a short note slipped inside the back cover, so the next binder knows what was done and why.

New books follow the same logic: structures that can be taken apart again, materials that age gracefully, and no decorative tricks that hide weak construction.

Practicalities

The workshop is on the ground floor with a step-free entrance. Because the room is small, we receive one visitor or party at a time and ask that you book a slot. Finnish, Swedish and English are all fine for correspondence.

To start a project, see the commissions page for examples, or write to hello@example.com.