Handmade Notebooks

Here are two notebooks I made last year. They turned out to be surprisingly durable. The discoloration on the blue one is from living several months at the bottom of a bag.  They are coveted with paper backed silk, which a made using the technique illustrated here.  I folded the corners library style, which prevents the boars from fraying at the corners, and makes them more resistant to minor spills.

The blue fabric is silk taffeta and easy to work with. It is thick enough to keep the paste from leaking through and keeps a crisp fold at the hinge. I ended up wasting a lot of the red silk because the paste leaked through in several places. There may be a way to treat the fabric to prevent this form happening, or perhaps a different adhesive could be used. The stars were embroidered after the paper was on. It was easy to do because I was able to draw the pattern with a stencil on the back, and an embroidery hoop was not needed.

Basic Bookbinding and The Craft of Bookbinding are both excellent resources for beginners.