"And I thought, oh that's it, I'll make books.
"So that started many years of research and reading, and practising and failing, and redoing, to making medieval books."
Key to Robyn's learning was access to her university library, where she could investigate damaged, aged texts and learn how they were made internally.
Ramsden binds her own books using a press she keeps in a kitchen cupboard at her home.
Her main focus in bookbinding revolves around the ancient craft of Nag Hammadi.
Nag Hammadi is the name of a town in northern Egypt, where the 4th-century style of bookbinding originated.
Ramsden said the story of Nag Hammadi began with 12 books packed in a vase and hidden, "pasted into a wall in a cave".
"They were deliberately hidden at some point.
"A farmer found them and didn't know what he had, but he'd unpacked them from the vase, which is a bit of an archaeological no-no.
"But he had made an effort to go and contact the local authorities to go and have a look at them.
"Whilst he was doing that, his mother burnt one for fuel to cook food and so there were 11 left."
Ramsden said the 11 remaining texts went through "all sorts of steps and missteps archaeologically-wise".
"Some were pulled apart and some were cut open. So a lot of the way they were made has been lost.
"There's a lot of uncertainty about exactly how they were constructed because of the damage that was done by other people."
Inside the books were Christian biblical writings known as Gnostic texts: secret gospels, poems and myths attributed to Jesus' sayings and beliefs, largely different from the New Testament.
"They're not the books in the Bible," Ramsden said.
"So there's controversy over the content, but one of them was a part of Plato's Republic, which, as a classical historian, I found very intriguing."
What remained of the Nag Hammadi collection was founded in 1945.
Ramsden noted that when the first Arab-Israeli War arrived in Egypt, Nag Hammadi texts had been dispersed around the world.
Today the Nag Hammadi scriptures are housed in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, Egypt.
Robyn's Booktown workshop condensed the binding process to just two hours, and most of that time was waiting for glue to dry.
"I teach [Nag Hammadi] because they're a one-quire book, with one set of pages and you don't have to get fancy," she said.
Ramsden uses a milliner's needle, scissors, glue and pushpins to construct her books from thick card, paper, greaseproof paper, leather, linen thread and a 3B1 notebook - all tied together in a kangaroo sheath band.
The Nag Hammadi-style books Robyn made at Booktown workshops were done in a simplified process. They're quick and easy to put together and pull apart.
"I cheat, so a 3B1 notebook is the innards, so when you've finished filling up your notebook with however you use notebooks, you can just pop their stitches and stitch a new one in and off you go," she said.
"A couple of people I know have actually bought an index book because you can buy a notebook that's an index book and put an index book in, and now that's your address book.
"Because it's leather it lasts for ages, and if you want to update your notebook, you just take it out and put a new one in and keep going."
Ramsden uses the craft at medieval re-enactment events, boasting of her ability to hide an iPad in what looks like a medieval book.
"I took it to an event and I had to read something, and the circumstances meant that I read it straight from my iPad," she said.
"I was a scandal, because it was the first time anyone had ever done that in a medieval event.
"And now everyone does it."
The idea came from her friend Isabell Winter, who continues to make mock-medieval gear for modern devices.
"She's made girdle books for people's iPhones and their phones, and they have them on their belts.
"And they look just like a girdle book, but in it is their phone, which is super cool.
"So for medieval re-enactors, we're now able to keep our devices on us, but in a discreet way."
