Holiday Books

I had been expecting to do some development work on my Android project over the holidays, but I ended up taking a break from programming altogether. I made some little notebooks at my kitchen table instead. I needed a break, and was glad I did it. It’s too easy to go down the development rabbit hole and lose perspective. Bookbinding makes a good compliment to programming. Like development, the craft is meticulous and unforgiving, but doesn’t have an “undo” command.

The patterned one uses cloth I prepared myself, and the signatures are kettle stitched together. The blue one is covered with store-bought bookbinding cloth and is my first attempt at sewing on tapes and making headbands. The tapes are visible inside the cover.

Four tapes is more than necessary. A small book like this could easily be done with just two. For simplicity, I fixed the tape ends to the outside of the end papers, and then glued on the mull. I was worried about getting the spacing wrong if I attached the tapes to the boards directly, and this way gives a reliable result.

The headbands are made from embroidery thread and sewn separately and glued to the spine. They don’t look too badly, even if they are a bit too narrow. On my next project I will try sewing the headband directly onto the signatures.