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[valiha]

As a way to battle my depression, I've taken up an old/new hobby - bookbinding. I even made some specialized tools for it, such as my own bookpress:







I even made some notebooks, one paperback and another hardcover, and I made the covers myself:









I hope I'll be able to sell some of the ones I make - these two already have their owners-to-be!

Comments

[niko]

That is a ridiculously cool hobby! :)

Does the inside start as literally just a stack of loose-leaf pages? (I'm looking at the second picture and wondering if the lines in the interior part are smaller sub-sets of pages that are combined into the final total, or if they just all start together right away.)

And that floral pattern on the second one is gorgeous. :)

[valiha]

Isn't it? I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it!

And yes, what you do is start with a stack of loose sheets (A4 is a standard size here, but you could also use any other size or shape) and fold them in half. The number can be anywhere from 3 to 7 or more, depending on the thickness of the paper - say, watercolor paper vs. thin marker paper. You then take these folded sheets of paper (called signatures) and punch holes in them (it's best to use a template for this since you will need to do this for all the signatures).

There are ways to create a pattern with these holes which then give you shape once the pages are sewn (there's a tutorial out there on sewing a pink awareness ribbon), but I just punch holes at regular intervals. Once I'm more sure in my sewing techniques I might experiment! There are different stitches, like coptic stitch (currently my favorite but I still find it complicated), loose stitch, combination of the two, Belgian secret binding and many more.

You can also use unfolded sheets of paper, but then those need to be glued to the cover (that's called perfect binding). Sea Lemon on YouTube has fantastic bookbinding tutorials (DIY Bookbinding Methods & Stitches and Basic Bookbinding Supplies, Substitutes & Tips); that's how I learned to make my book press and coptic stitch. :-)