Snowy Mountain Book w/Cloth Spine / Making Bookcloth

Something I've been wanting to do for a while is use bookcloth in a book.  I enjoy the look and feel of a quarter-bound book--cloth really gives a book a feeling of permanence, to me.  I've also thought for a while that by using my long-stitch sewing technique to bind the pages to heavy paper or card, and gluing the card to a cover, I can create a sturdier book than many traditionally-bound books, and one that would be easier to re-bind if necessary, since there's no paste or glue on the signatures.

Bookcloth, however, is quite expensive!  $8 for an 18x19" sheet at my local art store.  I might get two full-bound books out of that, or perhaps a dozen quarter-bound, but even if price weren't an issue, I'd still be limited to the 4 colors that they have on hand.  For some reason I never thought to myself, "self, why don't you make your own bookcloth?" until recently... it's pretty simple to do too (sorry no pictures!):

1. Select a cloth.  It should be woven fairly tight; muslin is excellent.  Wash if necessary and iron it as flat as you can.
2. Using a foam brush, get a sheet of paper (I used copy paper for this book, but it was a little heavier than would be ideal) covered in a thin, even layer of PVA glue.  Don't skimp on the glue!  If the paper warps a little bit from it, you're doing fine.  Allow the glue to set slightly--a couple of minutes is great for PVA--but not to dry.
3. Lay the cloth on top of the paper, turn over so the front side of the cloth is down, lay it on a piece of wax paper, and roll with a rubber roller or even a rolling pin.  Turn it over to make sure the bubbles are pressed out and the cloth is nice and flat.  If not, roll it some more.
4. Dry flat between two boards.  Cut to size with a rotary cutter and enjoy!

The first book I made with this bookcloth was not to sell, but actually a functional book for myself, to track what bills I have and haven't paid each month.  I went with plain paper, and a cover made from the picture in an Oregon-themed calendar.

You can see I did goof slightly and made the cloth part of the spine too narrow, thus having to glue the cover on a little far out.  I'll have to remember to add a half inch or so of extra space for the spine in the future.

I dig how the top of the long-stitch sewing looks just a little bit like a headband!  A few more decorative stitches and it would look great... perhaps on my next one.

Holographic Hot Rod Sketchbook

An irony of modern life is that so much of the best art and photography that we see in our daily lives are there solely to try and sell us something we don't need. Advertisement makes up almost all of the public art we see daily. And when it's gone, it's often lost forever! Although I have no particular desire to save advertisements, I do sometimes think it would be nice to save the art in some of them... and the Oregon Lottery poster for their Classic Black game jumped out at me and said "use me!"

I was quite attracted to its holographic backing and image of a lovely classic roadster. This is the first square sketchbook I've made, and as usual I tried a new thing or two. Using thick poster stock for paper was of course the first; it was hard to work with, and even in the finished, fully glued book, the edges stick up a little bit where the paper is getting rebellious. I also made the pages the same height as the covers--not necessarily advised, as they do stick out a little.

All in all I'm pretty happy with it though; it's a gorgeous book and has very good drawing paper in it. :)

This book is for sale! Buy it on Etsy and make me rich :)

King Tut Sketchbook

One thing I really love about bookbinding is being able to make covers out of things that I like and think are cool, but which would probably just be hanging around collecting dust if I didn't do something with them.  I love decorative paper, but it would be pretty weird to buy it and then just stick it in a box, pausing every once in a while to admire it.  There's plenty of package art that I enjoy, but keeping it around just to look at would be too much clutter.  Making these things into book covers lets me enjoy them for a long time to come, while actually getting a useful object out of them.

I was discussing this all with my ladyfriend, and she got the idea to make a book out of her King Tut shopping bag that she had been saving from our trip to the Tutankhamun exhibit in Seattle.  I've previously made gift bags into book covers, and found it is in fact an excellent material for them, being much more resilient than uncoated paper.  She's an artist, so I made her a sketchbook.

 This is the first sketchbook I've ever made, so I had a few engineering challenges.  First, the illustration board I use for book covers is rigid, but I didn't know how it would hold up at the dimensions I was trying for--9"x12.5".  Using two pieces of it glued together, on the other hand, would probably be too much for my hole puncher to punch through.  I ended up using illustration board bonded with a softer cardboard, to make it thicker and stronger but still holepunchable.

Next was the paper.  I've been having a hard time finding good quality drawing paper at a low enough price that I can make books out of it without breaking the bank, but for this project I would need not only good quality paper, but large good quality paper.  With my chosen cover size (chosen so that I could use as much gift bag as possible), I needed 24" long paper.  I ended up buying a huge pad of 18x24" of drawing paper at Blick, and cutting it to dimension.  Which introduced another challenge--cutting 24" of paper with a 22" cutting mat. :)

I wanted the inside covers to be in the same theme as the outside covers, but I didn't have any paper on hand that had an Egyptian feel to it.  Nor did I have any paper more than 12" wide.  I ended up buying a sheet of real Egyptian papyrus to use.  The two sheets of papyrus on the covers cost more than the 30 sheets of drawing paper they contain, but they give the book a real quality feel to it.

Finally I sewed it together with thick braided cotton cord.  I wish the hole punching were a bit cleaner ($8 Home Depot hole punches are rubbish BTW), but that's the only complaint I have with how this book turned out.  All in all it's a gorgeous object that inspires me to draw something Egyptian!

Bright Floral Notepad

Taking notes is something I do every day, usually on some form of scrap paper or a sticky note or something.  Notepads are handy, but I always wished they looked a little bit cooler...  So I thought to myself, "self, why don't you make a notepad that looks just a little bit striking?"  So I did.

This 4x6" notepad incorporates a gorgeous floral pattern, and uses a Japanese stab binding with a hinged top cover and rigid back cover, good for a writing surface.  I said I probably wouldn't use embroidery floss again, and for a Coptic binding I probably won't, but I found it (when waxed) to be excellent for stab binding, as it's cheap, strong, and colorful.

This book is for sale!  Buy it on Etsy for $4 + s/h.

Hearts and Skulls Journal

A book for a punk girl who likes to write, this journal has an Ed Hardy looking hearts and skulls paper for the covers, made from, of all things, a gift bag.  It was somewhat challenging to work with, being made of a plastic-covered paper, but the final effect is very nice and it has a good looking gloss finish.

Otherwise a pretty normal journal: Coptic binding with black linen thread, my custom made journal-lined paper, etc.

This book is for sale! Buy it on Etsy for $10 + s/h.

Green Argyle Journal

In most of my book projects so far, I've experimented with something new or different.  This project on the other hand, is one of my first--if not the first--where I didn't really try anything new per se, but rather tried to develop some polish.  All of the techniques I used for this book were previously developed, from my spine papers to my cover and publisher's page.

Since there isn't anything experimental, I think this is possibly my most polished, finished looking book yet.  The stitching is even and attractive, the covers are tight, the paper on the covers is nicely applied.  I'm starting to feel like I'm getting decent at this ol' Coptic stitch. :)  The green argyle paper is just beautiful, and the orange linen stitching complements it very well, I think.

This book is for sale!  Buy it on Etsy for $10 + s/h.

Purple Plaid Recipe Book

After making my first recipe book and enjoying it, I decided to make another.  I thought something a little punk-girl would be fun, so I got some dark purple plaid paper and eggplant linen paper for the inner covers, and got to work.

With this book, as with most books I've made, I tried something new.  It occurred to me how odd it is in Coptic stitching to have gorgeous covers and brightly colored thread, yet leave the spine the dull blank white of the paper within.

My idea: use scrap cover paper on the ends.  I cut it into 1 inch strips, folded it, holepunched it, and worked them right into the sewing process, on the outsides of each signature.  Beautimous!  This was also the first book I made with a title page and publisher page.

This book is for sale!  Buy it on Etsy for $10 + s/h.

Hydrangea Watercolor Recipe Book

For a while I've had the idea to make a recipe book with blank recipe cards in it, to help people record and collect their family recipes.  My mom brought the idea back to the forefront when we were talking one day and she mentioned that all of her recipe were on slips of paper and loose index cards.  I decided to go home that night and make her a blank recipe book.

I found some lovely watercolor hydrangea paper in my stack of papers, which just so happened to look like mom's backyard hydrangea, Ramon.  (Yes, naming plants runs in the family.)  I only had one sheet unfortunately, just enough for a front cover, but I decided it would be enough and used a nice blue Gingham paper for the back cover.

I also developed my own recipe cards for this project, again in Inkscape, and experimented with printing my bindery logo on the back cover.  I decided it would look better as a tip-in at the end of the book, so people can remove it if they really don't want to see it.  This was the first book I made where I was unequivocally happy with the results.  I can still see areas to improve in, and places where I can develop some polish and grow, but I don't feel like a first-timer anymore. :)

Dark Cherry Blossom Journal

Sakura, the Japanese word for cherry blossoms.  One of my favorite things about spring is seeing the cherry trees blossom.  Lying beneath them and watching the blossoms blow in the wind, it's easy to see why there is so much poetry on the subject.  They look great during the day, but underappreciated is how cherry blossoms look at night.  Their lovely, ethereal, almost spectral glow when lit only by moonlight is captured in this beautiful paper, and when I saw it at Blick, I knew it needed to become a book.

With this book I experimented with printing my own lined journal paper.  I used it so as not to waste it, but I wasn't very happy with it and ended up making my own lined paper in Inkscape, which incidentally is amazing for layout and publishing.  This is also the first book where I used waxed linen thread to sew it together, and I will probably never use anything else ever again.

This book is for sale!  Buy it on Etsy for $7 + s/h.

Black Crinkle Paper Softcover Journal

A lot of the books I've made up to this point have floral patterns, bright colors, pretty stitching, etc.  I'm not explicitly making them for girls, but if someone were to think so I would certainly understand.  So much like Pocky, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi and Sanrio, I decided it was time to start making some manly journals.

With this book I tried a few more things I had never tried before: I used embroidery floss for the stitching, which though strong and available in a milion colors, would not fit through my needle, tangled badly, and wouldn't maintain tension.  I also made it a softcover, which flows naturally from the long-stitch binding I used.  The cover is papered with an interesting pre-crinkled black paper, and the inside cover with a nice feather patterned paper.  This is the kind of journal you could write in at a construction site, during your 45 minute union break, inbetween making catcalls to passing women.

This book is for sale! Buy it on Etsy for $8 + s/h.

Forest for the Trees Coptic Bound Book

Trees. Being from the state with the greatest forested area aside from Alaska, I appreciate them.  I hug them.  I rest under them.  I sometimes even take pieces of them that have been pulped, strained, pressed, bleached, and cut, and make books out of them.  Sometimes I even make books out of trees, that have trees printed on them.

For this journal, I thought I'd make a nice Coptic-style chainstitch binding.  This type of binding allows the book to lie completely flat when open, nice for a fat book like a bible (what it was invented for), but also good for a sketchbook or reference book.

I experimented with a couple things while making this book: a specific folding pattern for putting the cover papers on (which I like) and the use of cotton embroidery thread for sewing books, which I do not like.  Doing this project has given me a new appreciation for waxed linen thread, which peaked about the 15th time that I had to splice my thread back together.

This book is for sale!  Due to the stitching, I've decided to sell it at cost: $4.00 + s/h on Etsy.

Cheers!

Shift Pale Lager Notepad

Upcycling.  It's not in my web browser's spellcheck dictionary, but I hear more and more people using it every day.  The basic idea is to take something that would be trash, or at least recycling, and do something fun and creative with it, give it a new lease on life.  Packaging, for instance.  Packaging is very underappreciated.  Crisply detailed and often very attractive logos are precision printed onto difficult materials such as the cheapest cardboard available, looked at for a millisecond to verify we're buying the right product, and chucked moments after we open them without a second thought.

I thought it would be fun to take the box art for a beer I enjoyed and make a simple little notepad out of it.

This neat little notebook is 80 pages (front and back) of regular old office paper, sewn using a modified chain stitch, to covers made out of a beer box and illustration board.  It lies flat when opened and shows that you not only appreciate a quality notepad, but also good beer.

Hello!

Ever since I was a kid I have loved books.  Whether I'm learning how to do something, experiencing how people have lived in different times and places, or just escaping into a fantasy land, books have had a big influence on my life from an early age.

And ever since my 1960s-era paperbacks of the Lord of the Rings trilogy started crumbling to dust, I've been interested in how books--the physical objects--are made.  I learned how mass market paperbacks are slapped together, and how trade paper is similar but very different.  I learned that an acid-free hardbound book can last hundreds of years before deteriorating.  I even learned that buying a book online labelled "hardcover" does not necessarily mean it's going to be hard-bound.  I took up the hobby in college of making simple unlined journals, with computer paper folded and sewn to cardstock with sewing thread.

I eventually had to stop making books and start making a living, and the journals that I had made were slowly doled out to friends and family, or used by me.  Once in a while, however, I get the urge to write.  I don't write anything anyone would find interesting, but it clears my head so I can go to sleep.  One night, the writing muse hit me and I had nothing to write in.  My journals were full.  My college comp books were full.  And it was almost midnight, so I couldn't just go get one.  I started to wonder if maybe I shouldn't make myself another journal or two.

Only days later, I was walking through the local art store and saw that they had some bookbinding supplies.  Everything was screaming to me, "make more books, make more books".  My girlfriend encouraged me to take the hobby back up in whatever spare time I could muster, and I have!  And it's fun!  I love reading books, but there's a certain joy I get in making them, and knowing that (hopefully) someone is finding them useful to write in and delightful to look at.

Cheers!