The most common type of sewn bookbinding that I often default to, falls into the category of longstitch binding. It’s really a general categorization for many different methods of sewn binding. People have invented their own patterns and techniques and have probably called it something else as well. Suffice to say, it’s a general way to denote sewing your paper to the cover of your book. I’m sure you’ve noticed journals out there with exposed sewing in the binding in a variety of patterns and designs. They are all technically longstitch binding techniques, but in different patterns. In this tutorial, I’ll take you the process of creating a leather journal using a simple straight longstitch pattern through slots in the cover instead of holes. Here’s what we’ll be making…
The materials for this project include leather, paper, thread, needle, an awl and cutting device of some sort.
Regarding the thread, I’m using a natural linen thread in this example, but you can also use waxed thread sold specifically for bookbinding to prevent knotting up when sewing. For this method, you’ll be using a short piece of thread in sewing, so I don’t think you really have to worry about knotting. Even regular embroidery thread or ribbon can be used for binding. Anything that doesn’t stretch out and has some strength to it will work.
Regarding my little awl, I use it to punch holes in the paper. Some folks use a drill to go through huge stacks of paper or you can even use a tiny hole puncher if you have it. An awl is a traditional tool and you’ll really find it quite convenient. Along with the awl, I keep an old catalog to punch on top of…keeping my table hole-less. 🙂
Let me first explain how I made my leather cover, although you can do this with any other type of material. You can certainly substitute the leather with thick paper, fabric or any material that can wrap around the entire book. If you want to use something rigid, like cardboard, just make sure you cut out three pieces for the back, front and binding of the book cover. You can connect rigid pieces together with bookcloth, fabric or strong tape. Some folks connect two pieces of board with bookcloth or fabric which just leaves the binding really soft and malleable.
If I use a very heavy weight type of leather, I usually just cut it to size and consider it ready. Note the extra material on the right hand side as well. I freehand cut that extra part, so it can wrap onto the top of the journal as a closure. Entirely up to you if you want that extra flap. In this particular case I had a much thinner piece leather though and decided to glue a piece of cardstock to it as a liner paper, giving it more strength. To calculate the size of my liner paper and cover material, I usually give and extra 1/8″ all around to give the inside papers room to breath, plus the width of binding depending how many signatures you have. A signature is a term to refer to the folded sheets of paper that you will sew into your book. Usually you have several stacks of these, depending on how many pages you want in the finished book. I usually allow for 1/4″ per signature, since I’m usually pretty thick cardstock papers, 8 folded sheets per signature. If you are not sure about the measurements, the best thing to do is to prepare all your signatures, then use it to measure out what your final cover size should be. You can score your liner paper and/or cover material as well, so that it’s ready to be put together.
Let’s prepare the signatures of paper that will go inside your book. I usually go with the natural sizes of the paper I use. I don’t like to waste material, so I take whatever size the paper is and fold it in half to create the signatures and therefore, size of my book. To go smaller in size, I cut all the sheets in half, then fold to create my signatures. This pretty much creates a predetermined range of sizes for my books, since paper comes in predetermined sizes. I just don’t like cutting paper into a custom size as it’s hard to use the leftovers. In some cases, I have made strangely sized books from leftovers I’ve had lying around, so in it’s really up to you on the size. I’ve also made journals with varying sizes of paper inside, a nice way to make an eclectic junky journal. In this example, I’ve taken regular A4 sized paper (similar to Letter-size) and ripped them in half. I actually really like the deckled edge when you rip paper instead of cutting it.
I folded all these papers in half, each signature containing 8 sheets of paper. With two signatures, I have 64 pages if you are flipping through it like a book. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but really it is enough for the first time. It’s better to make smaller books, so you can keep making them and evolve after using them. You’ll start to realize what you like and don’t like. Once you have all your signatures, it’s time to punch the holes. It actually doesn’t matter how many holes you make, it can be an even number or odd number. In the end there will always be a way to sew it together. You just want to make sure there are enough to secure the book together and that they are not so far apart to create a weak/loose part of your book. Often the pattern and number of holes created is decided by what the bookmaker intends for the sewing seen in the binding. In this tutorial we’ll go with 4 holes in each signature, unevenly spaced because I measure in from the edges of the paper and just guessstimate something that looks good. After some experimentation you’ll get the hang of it and will probably start to design your own patterns!
For the cover, instead of punching matching holes for each signature I’ve decided to go with slots. This just means cutting a little line across where the holes would have been in the cover, instead of punching the individual holes. This makes it easier especially if you have a lot of signatures and don’t want the mess of aligning all the holes. In some cases you’re holes would be so close together they might actually make a slot anyway. I personally just like the ease of sewing when there’s a slot to go through and it looks pretty cool too. Mark your slot lines on the cover and carefully cut them with your knife, making sure you’ve gone completely through to the other side of your cover material.
Now that you have all your materials prepped, you are ready to sew! I work with one signature at a time, planning to leave the tied knot on the inside bottom hole of the signatures. This knot can end up anywhere you like though, since you weave in and out of the holes, you always end up next to where you started to tie the final knot. Just to give you an example of why this matters…if you like ribbon let’s say, you might actually want to use ribbon to thread your book together and make a knot on the outside binding. This could give you a decorative binding with ribbon knotted bows on the outside…just an idea! So here goes with the sewing. I start at the bottom hole inside my first signature and thread my string through to the outside cover…leaving a little tail like so.
With needle on the outside, I thread it into the next hole through the cover and signature of paper. I just keeping doing this weaving in and out until there are no holes left.
This is what you see on the outside binding…
And this is what you see on the inside. You then continue by going back down, weaving in and out the same holes.
Weave the thread in and out…making sure to keep your thread tight, papers in their position and the end tail still there!
This will basically fill in the spaces you see that doesn’t have thread running across it. In the end you’ll see thread straight across the binding, hole to hole. Finally you will reach the hole right next to your tail end and that’s when you tie it off.
I just tie a regular knot to secure it. You can also double knot it, especially with a thinner type of string to make it more secure. First signature done – wahlah!
This is a really simple way to bind your signatures into the cover one by one. Just weaving in and out with the longstitch binding technique, making sure you are tightening the thread, everything tight and nothing loosey goosey. I really like the fact that there’s thread all across the binding, but it’s created with the weaving and not a loose piece across the whole way. The most important thing is to check your thread tightness, I think.
After sewing in my second signature, you’ll see the binding looks like this…
Pretty cool, huh? If you have more signatures, you’ll probably be playing around with tightness of the threads and pushing them up and down, so it’s all straight and pretty on the binding. I finalized this journal by braiding some ribbon and attaching it to the closure flap. I also added a bead to the end of the ribbon and now I have a wraparound closure that really completes the whole look of the journal. Functional and pretty…nice, huh?
With this example there were only two signatures, but of course you can sew as many of them as needed to complete your book. If you use super thick paper, you might have more signatures by including less sheets in each stack. Here are some other journals I’ve made using longstitching and slots in the cover. You can see that a variation in the number of holes or thickness of the signatures can really change up the look.
With all the sewing in the binding, this type of book looks complicated, but it’s really the simplest kind with the straight stitching of each individual signature. Think of the possibilities if you vary up the materials, size and pattern. Happy bookbinding!
One of the first types of bookbinding I learned about was how to make an accordion book or aka concertina book. It’s a super easy peasy way to transform paper, glue and a piece of ribbon into a functional creation! I imagine that many of you have probably made one these before in grade school since it’s an especially easy project for kids to do. However, that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to create something that looks really snazzy and classy at the same time. The Booklyn Artists Alliance has a great PDF that’s actually an education manual for kids. It illustrates what an accordion book is and how you can construct your pages along with lots of variations.
So why would one choose to create an accordion book? Well, because the book is a series of folded pages it’s great for display purposes. You can use it like a regular book but you can also spread it open for full-viewing of every page. It’s an easy type of book to create without any kind of complicated sewing and I actually like it for the folded page aspect. Whenever I have thin paper that I only want to use one side of, I usually create an accordion book, where the pages are folded, so you only write on one side. I also think it’s a fun type of book to make if you piece together scraps of papers you have lying around!
To make an accordion book you need paper, glue and I add some ribbon in for the closure although a closure is not required. To walk you through the process, I’ve taken some scrap strips of paper I have lying around, some scrap painted papers and strip of ribbon along with my trusty PVA glue, Vinavil.
The first thing to do is to construct your pages. You basically need to create a back-and-forth fold of pages…however long you want your book to be, you can make it! If you buy large sheets of cardstock, it’s possible to get a little book without piecing any paper together, you just cut a strip and fold. However, if you want to use scraps or you need to piece together papers you can cut little tabs and connect each piece of folded pages together as I did or you can even glue one whole side to the other to create your accordion fold of pages. If you don’t mind doing a bit of measuring you can fold you paper and leave a tiny strip as a connecting flap as well. Any way you want to do it, just get your paper folded and pieced together into an accordion fold. Whew, the bulk of the work is literally done at this point!
Now you can add a cover to your book to keep it sturdy and strong. It’s also a good time to think about how you might add your closure as well, to sort of hide it behind your cover material. I’ve decided to only use one side of the pages of my book, so I’m wrapping ribbon all around my stack of paper. The left side is going to be the “binding” part if you flip it like a book, so the ribbon goes around it. If you wanted your book to open up entirely, you could cut your ribbon into four pieces and attach it to the front and back, edges hanging out to the left and right. This way you can tie the ribbon on the left and right of your book to close it securely, but you can also untie both sides and your book can stretch out entirely.
My cover material is just some scrap painted papers I glued on top of the ribbon to the front and back covers. It’s actually smaller than the book size itself, creating a nice framed look. You can of course use thicker material like chipboard to create a hardcover.
After gluing everything together you should put it under some heavy books to apply pressure and let it dry. That will ensure your book is secure and the glue is really binding it all together.
Tah-dah! Easy peasy accordion book all done…how lovely is that? In my example, the ribbon ties on the right…but know that you could have attached the ribbons to tie on either side or skip that part all together if you don’t need a closure. Especially if you are going to use it as a showcase for photos on a shelf, you don’t really need closure at all. I’m sure you are realizing how easy it really is to bind a book – yes, this is bookbinding! I think this is probably the first book you’ll make if you take a bookbinding class somewhere. Remember that once you’ve learned the process, you can vary the size, materials and closure to create really unique books for any occasion or purpose. Here are a few I’ve created previously.
There are lots of ideas out there on the internet as well, for example The Paper Source envelope accordion book. How cool is that? You can hang it up to hold your receipts or notes as well as close it up to take on the go. I hope you give it try and enjoy the process of creating something super cool and functional. Ciao ciao!
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More Resources:
I wholeheartedly recommend CreativeBug (Get 3 months subscription for $1) because they have a coptic stitch tutorial as well and it’s very official by a professional bookbinder, so that is something to check out!
As with all things, once you try it a couple times, you’ll figure it out. So don’t hesitate! The results are satisfying for sure, so have fun!
Here are some bookbinding books on Amazon if you are looking to learn more:
Hello everyone! I wanted to share some progress in my journal making and bookbinding adventures…namely, some mistakes and major boo boos! I was able to finish two journals, but learning a lot along the way.
First, I made this shabby chic journal, pattern paper from scrapbooking to make the covers with some heavier weight cream colored paper inside. I stitched this page by page, so every page could lay out flat completely. However, using embroidery thread and a loose hand, it became really loose as you can see in the photo and I don’t think the decorative element shows with such soft thread. Inside I also printed a titled but made a mistake with the term “create fearlessly” as I meant it to go on the last page, oops! Well, the rest of the pages are blank, so maybe it’ll provide funky inspiration regardless!
The second journal also has similar pattern paper covers and on second thought I will try to find some thicker type of board for covers. This one has cream paper as well, but regular copy paper weight with 8 signatures, so lots of pages for sketching and such. I also used natural fiber linen string, which I think looks much better…more structure and stitching design showing in the binding. However, I also had tension issues with this as well, some places looser, some places tighter!
So now I am going to try and make a sort of remains of the day type of journal from some cardboard covers and random papers I have lying around. Better bound than spread all over my room definitely. Not sure what to do with these journals though…I already have too many started and doodled in…eek!
Happy Thursday to everyone! I am working on an artsy baby journal for a friend of mine and wanted to share a bit of my novice bookbinding learnings through the process. At times I feel like a kindergartner, because I’ve managed to make everything a bit sticky from the glue magically invading and spreading all over my creative workspace! Other notable learnings?
Choose sturdy material – board for the covers and heavier weight paper for the pages
Use a glue brush and wash it out before it hardens
Glue spread onto the heavier surface seems to work better, less bubbles
Precut, prepunch, pre-everything to size before moving to the glue phase…ooops
Don’t try to punch through 12 heavy pages at the same time
Measure out more than enough string for sewing, so you don’t have to add more mid-sewing
I also realized how much precision really matters for certain details of the finished project. For example, cut too close or too far and you get imperfect corners for the covers. Maybe I shouldn’t eyeball it!
The photo above also shows my experiment of using regular cardboard for the cover material, which is cool for the thickness, but very porous and seemingly easy to puncture and damage. It also didn’t help that my recycled shopping bag was totally wrinkled for this cover, but I liked the colors and pattern a lot. I created a bunch of different covers to experiment with the materials I have lying around the house. The itty bitty one you see below in the center is leather wrapped around a board and threaded together. That little prototype is really sparking ideas!
I’m not really that picky when it comes to creating art journals, but for a gift I want it to be as nice as possible. I did my best and here is the final product and inner pages. It’s a bit loose because I stitched each page separately to keep it flat and easy to spread out and draw on. Although I initially didn’t want super girly colors, it ended up sort of strawberry shortcake themed and I think it’s great for a baby girl!
Off to finish off my experiments and make more journals…for what I’m not sure yet…
I mentioned yesterday that I wanted to save more complicated bookbinding for an art journal because I prefer to use something that opens out flat – easier to paint and draw on as well as leave to dry. I learned that coptic stitch binding creates that effect and is supposedly pretty easy to do as well. To keep my art journaling goals more approachable from an almost daily perspective, I decided to create a smaller journal size.
I should also mention that I’ve never learned bookbinding from a teacher, because complicated means more than stapling a booklet! A friend of mine took a bookbinding class, so I’ve been exposed to some of the techniques and tips. I watched this Coptic Stitch binding tutorial on Youtube and was able to follow along and complete my fat, but smaller sized art journal that lays out flat very nicely!
I actually created the cover back in 2003 from some Italian patterned paper I bought in Florence glued over some hardboard – just recycled the bottom board of an used notepad. I tend to make little pieces of projects and they sit around for occasions like this. I cut, folded and punched some heavy ivory paper, enough for a year of journaling and sewed it all together with my metal-twine. It was actually pretty weird, because the metal in the twine causing a lot of unnecessary twisting and you can see some parts of the metal sticking out already as the twine part wears down. I made some mistakes and tightened the covers too much, but it’s holding together nicely regardless.
I think it’s pretty cute for a homemade journal and I encourage everyone to make a small and approachable-sized journal. I got the idea back during Art Every Day Month in 2009, where Jennifer Lee from Life Unfolds blogged about her tiny art journal that made it convenient for quick and daily spurts of creativity. Fabulous idea, grazie!
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