Books!

Remember these papers from the marbled paper tutorial?

Well, they have now become these:

Two new hand bound books!

I originally became interested in bookbinding because a lot of artists make their own sketchbooks because it's cheaper than buying them, and you can make them exactly to your specifications.

I started with simple long stitch first to practice (Coptic stitch seemed to be the most popular for artists sketchbooks). I quite like them! The orange was the first one I did; I covered a piece of card stock with the marbled paper, then marked and scored for the folds, and sewed in eight signatures (bunches of folded paper) of five pages each.

I had punched the holes a bit unevenly, and then forgot to keep all the signatures pointing the same way, so its a bit uneven, and I had a bit of difficulty keeping my sewing tension even. Even with that I like it, and I'm kind of glad that it's not perfect, because then I would be afraid to use it.

After a while I couldn't stop thinking of making more books, so I got out my supplies and made the purple book. I made the cover a bit larger than the pages this time, and added a sheet of plain paper on the inside of the cover too. I think it looks much nicer this way. I also used seven signatures of six sheets each this time, which made a slightly skinnier spine.

The corners are a little rough, but overall I’m really happy with it. It feels really nice in my hands, I think I got all the proportions just right on this one. And I had a much better time keeping my sewing tension even too.

I'm definitely going to make more books, it is so fun! Now I just have to decide what to do with them all!