Calligraphy, illumination, & bookbinding of calfskin vellum book. Early English Text from the Bodleian Library (MS Bodl 832 leaf 174). Written on 2 sheets of vellum, this 4-folio book was bound to another piece of parchment with longstitch bookbinding and glued into a leather-bound cover with straps to keep the book shut (vellum does not fold easily). In the pictures of the contents, some of the pages are upside-down because often books were printed (or written) on a piece of paper so that it could be folded up and bound before cutting the page edges (this is how the edges of books are smooth). While I did not do this, I laid out my pages this way because it has worked for me before and I did not have any backup vellum if I made a mistake in the page order.