Friday, May 24, 2013

Bookbinding

Front coverBack cover Sample of pages in cereal box book.
Bookbinding, a set on Flickr.

Art post for today.  The photos above are of the first book I have made using a cereal box.  I sewed 4 signatures in to the cover.  It was an interesting process.  It took a lot of nerve and courage for me to do this book.

HOW DID I DO IT?

First I cut off the excess edges from the box which left a wonderful structure.  Next I gessoed the front back and spine.  I then made a template with the number of holes I wanted in the Spine for sewing.  I used a 5 hole straight stitch design using black waxed linen thread. The signatures are independent of each other (I did not use a copic stitch or anything like that).  I sewed in each signature and then rounded the corners to give it a finished look.

I still need to work on the cover and spine little more and then I am going to use this book for sketching.  I have never really sketched, but I want to practice before my trip to China.  I am going to make a travel journal similar to this one, just a little smaller for ease of transport.  This book is about 9x12 and is a bit cumbersome for travel.

My next book will have a mixture of papers and I may use binding tape for the spine.  We shall see.

Anyway, I enjoyed this project and my bookbinding skills are definitely improving.  WooHoo.


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