I’ve been meaning to try book binding for a long time now. The process and results fascinate me…I think it’s the old fashioned feeling of making something that doesn’t use glue or plastic.
In my seemingly never ending search for an easy detailed tutorial I came across this one from Shelly, which I think is one of the most detailed tutorials on this subject available online for free. Shelly calls her method single needle chain stitch and it’s not strictly speaking Coptic stitch but it’s pretty close.
This is Shelly’s book – I don’t have a picture of the stitching on my book – it looks like this except it’s hot pink.
The binding itself doesn’t take long once you get going, it’s all the cutting and making sure that everything lines up that takes the time and then, in my case realising that I should have decorated the covers before binding and having a few days of blind panic while I figured out a workaround. I’m pleased with my attempt (I have to admit though that this is the fourth time I’ve tried book binding – it takes a bit of practice).
For my book covers I used some offcuts of artists mount board, double thickness, glued together with PVA. I cut my pages roughly to size and trimmed them after the book was bound. The only problem I had with this was the when I got to the last pages there was nothing underneath them…with hindsight I would have put double thickness of mount board under them for support! I would recommend covering the book covers prior to binding but it was my intention to make a cloth cover so I didn’t bother and then when the cloth cover went all wrong I had to improvise with mulberry paper. I don’t think anyone would notice if I didn’t say anything!
Completed book – sent to the lovely Jenny for a SwapBot swap
This is super cool! I’m new to bookbinding and I’m learning basic casebinding right now, and experimenting with colors. There’s a fun old book about bookbinding, too, on Google Books, called BOOKBINDING FOR AMATEURS. I love this stitch style, and am interested in learning it. Thanks for the tutorial link!