As promised, here is a little tutorial for you. I’ll do my best to put it in .pdf format later this week, so you can easily download and print it.

Tools for Bookbinding:

You don’t really need much to bind your own books; however there are a few tools that will make the process easier. Start out with the bare minimum, and invest in some other fun gadgets as you progress if you find that you really enjoy making books!

For a pamphlet you’ll need:

• Cardstock or other heavy paper for a cover
• 3-4 Sheets of Text-weight paper for the pages
• Something to cut your cover and pages to size – if you don’t have a paper cutter you can use a craft knife and cutting mat or even just a pair of scissors.
• A ruler – preferably metal    
• A small hole-punch or an awl
• A towel    
• Some sort of fiber to sew your pages together. Heavy linen thread is standard for bookbinding, but you can get really creative here. I like using hemp cord for a rustic look, and ribbons are always pretty and you have such a variety to choose from. Yarn or embroidery floss would also work, but be careful that whatever you choose should be strong enough to withstand some wear and tear.
• A tapestry needle to sew it all together
• A bone folder is a nice-to-have item, and they’re not expensive at all, but you can get away without one for this project.

1. Decide the finished size for your pamphlet. Cut out your cover, making it the height you want x twice the width. Cut out your pages. The dimensions should be 1/8 of an inch shorter x ¼ inch narrower than your cover.

In bookbinding, the interior pages are arranged into signatures. A signature is a group of pages all folded together. In a pamphlet, you work with just one signature (although I’ll show how to make a 2-signature pamphlet once we get through the regular single signature version). A signature shouldn’t be more than 3-5 pages, depending on the weight of the paper you use. When you start folding more pages than that together the front edges of the middle pages stick out further than the outer pages. Even with fewer pages, this will happen to some degree. You can even this out with a paper cutter, if you don’t like it. I like the handcrafted look of this when it’s just a few pages, but if there are too many pages, it starts to look messy and not so nice. Also, having too many pages adds bulk, so your book won’t close properly, which is also not nice.

2. Fold your cover sheet and pages in half, one by one. Here’s where a bone folder comes in handy. If you are really accurate and careful, use a ruler and the bone folder to score the center of each sheet and it will fold over so nicely. Once the sheet is folded, use the bone folder to really burnish the crease so it’s nice and smooth.

Did you know that paper has a grain, much like fabric? You’ll always get a neater fold when your fold is with the grain rather than across it. It’s more noticeable with heavier weight papers, but see if you can feel a difference. Take a sheet of paper and bend it cross-wise. Don’t crease it, just sort of let it spring back and forth between your fingers and thumb. Now try lengthwise. One direction will have more give and the other will be more springy. Could you tell which way the sheet will fold better? The grain on most types of paper runs lengthwise, and you’ll get a nicer fold if you use the paper in that direction. Don’t worry, though, if you need to fold it crosswise to get the size you need, just use a bone folder and you’ll still get a nice fold.

3. Stack your pages together and stack them on top of the cover. The cover is slightly larger, so carefully center the pages, with the center folds all matching up to prepare to punch three holes for sewing. Make a mark in the very center, and then make two more marks an equal distance on either side of the center mark. The top and bottom marks should be about ¾ to 1 inch from the top and bottom edges.

4. Place your book on top of a folded towel, if you’re going to be using an awl, or on a cutting mat if you’re using a hole punch. To make a sturdy book, don’t make the holes any bigger than the fiber you’re using to sew it all together with. For example, if I were going to use linen thread, I’d probably stick with a very small awl. For hemp cord, I usually use the second from the smallest size on my screw punch. Keeping everything lined up, punch or poke away at each of the three marks.

5.You’re almost done, and this is the easy part! Cut a length of whatever fiber you’ve chosen to use. You’ll need twice the distance between the top and bottom holes, plus enough to tie (you can do a bow or a knot, whatever you’d like). Thread your tapestry needle and start sewing:

a. Go into the middle hole from the outside to the inside, leaving a tail of a few inches.

b. Come out through the top hole.

c. Go back into the bottom hole.

d. Come back out through the middle hole. Arrange the thread so that the tails are on either side of the thread running between the top and bottom holes. Pull it snugly, but carefully, so that it’s flat, but doesn’t tear through the holes and tie the ends in a square knot (right over left, left over right). Now you can tie a bow, add dangly beads, or just trim it short.

And you just made yourself a book! Now have some fun and make some more. Cut the cover an inch or two wider and fold it over to make a flap closure. Sew on a button and ribbon to tie your book shut, or cut the flap into a point and cut a slit in the front cover to tuck it in. Cut the cover a couple inches longer, and fold it up to create a pocket on the inside or outside. Use grommets to close up the pocket edges, or stitch them up on your sewing machine. Here I punched holes and tied it with a ribbon. There are so many things you can do to make your book special.

If you decide to make a larger book, you may want to punch 5 or 7 holes, rather than just 3. Any odd number will work. Just start at the center hole as before, and then come out the hole directly above it, back in through the hole above that and down through the hole under the middle hole. You can also sew your book together in the opposite direction, starting from the middle hole on the inside of the book, and that way your tied off ends will be on the inside.

If you want more pages, here are a couple ways to do a two signature pamphlet. The first is done by cutting the cover a couple inches wider and then folding first in half, with the right sides together, and then folding it back about an inch from the center fold on both sides. Then you just have to tuck each signature into each fold and stitch. For the second option, you’ll really want a bone folder. Cut the cover about 1/4 inch wider than your finished book, depending on how heavy the paper you are using for your pages is. Measure from each edge what you want the finished width to be and carefully score at these two points. It’s a little tricker to sew everything together, but definitely do-able. My picture of that didn’t come out so well, I’ll try to post that one later.

So there is just about all you need to know to bind your own pamphlets. I’d love to see what you come up with, please be sure to either leave a comment on this post or send me an e-mail when you make something!  And please feel free to ask me any questions if something isn’t clear.

UPDATE: Welcome everyone from Whipup! Please say hello and let me know if you found this tutorial useful. If there is more interest, I’d love to do some more advanced bookbinding tutorials in the future. Also, I should have the .pdf version of this posted later this afternoon, so you’ll easily be able to download and print this out for reference. And come back and let me know when you’ve made a book, I love seeing what other people come up with, this is just a jumping off point, and I bet there will be lots of fun versions out there to see! Thanks :o)

Read More

This is a book I made for myself a few years ago, but haven’t been using. It’s an old book that was falling apart, so I took out its guts and used some really lovely printmaking paper for the new signatures. I bound it with some red silk ribbon and added some cherry-like beads and leaf shaped beads to the ends of the ribbon.

Lately, whenever I have a really great idea for something to create or a recipe to try, or a really great quote I want to remember, or I hear about a book or musician I want to check out, I write it down on a post it. The result is that I have a lot of post its floating around and getting lost. So into the book they will go. I don’t know why I kept forgetting to use my pretty little book, but it’s back now. It’s not so much a journal, I think it’s more like a commonplace book. I’ve filled it with sketches and ideas and notes to myself, pictures for inspiration, ticket stubs, all kinds of things. While looking through it this morning, I found a few ideas that I wanted to try out, but forgot about. It’s great to have this repository for all these thoughts and ideas. It should clear up some brain space, which is sometimes in short supply around here :o). How do you keep track of all your inpirations and ideas?    

I loved looking at the Mood boards for the Decor8/Amy Butler contest recently. I think I need to dedicate a few pages for such a thing as I work on my living room.

I’ve got a stack of the same really great French printmaking paper and a couple other old, old books, so I’ll be making a couple of similar books for the shop this week. I thought I’d also post a tutorial for how to make your own little pamphlet-style book, which is a great size for a travel journal or maybe a special scrapbook gift. Would anyone be interested in such a thing?

Read More

Once upon a time this was a blog about making stuff. Let’s bring the creativity back, shall we?  Remember how I had big plans to install a clothesline? Well, I actually did it and have been using it the past few weeks. I just really love it. It’s just lovely to go out on a sunny Saturday morning and hang up my freshly washed clothes. I’m not sure how nice it will be in the Winter, but I still plan on trying. Here are not my clothes, but a selection of pretty fabrics, many of which are soon to be a quilt for a nephew who is on the way. I’m pretty excited to get started on this one, my craft room was overtaken by goslings for a few weeks, but they are happily living outside now and I have my very messy space back. For the quilt, I’m using Denyse Schmidt’s What a Bunch of Squares pattern (I think it’s slightly different than the one on her site), and lots of bright, graphic prints, like the numbers fabric on the left, and the green with black printing in the middle. The solid blue that you can just see towards the left will be used for the outside of each block. I hope it works. Her quilts are usually more solid, so I hope it’s not too busy. I plan on working on it all week, so I should have more pictures soon.

And here’s a little something I did a while ago. I bought this cute vintage table cloth on etsy. I love it, but the outlines around the daisy flowers were really faded, so I decided to fill them back in with a little backstitching. I added a cute red border and plain linen back, and viola! A pretty pillow! I like it on my rocking chair, but it will probably spend most of the time in the living room on one of the wing-back chairs, once I recover them with some linen I picked up a few weeks ago for $2 a yard. That’s no typo people, two dollars! I thought it was $4 when I took it to the cutting table, but it was on clearance, and another 50% off. Score!

 

Read More

So, Saturday was my birthday, and I decided that I would just do whatever I felt like the entire weekend. So there were spurts of fun and busy-ness and spurts of lazing around. A friend gave me some little wooden egg ornaments, so I made an Easter Tree. I picked up some branches from the yard and gave them a little coat of Spring green paint, and glued silk blossoms all over. I added a few other Easter-y things that I had and I think it’s a pretty little tree. I may try to add a few more ornaments. I just love that little feather chick.

I got my geek on for a few hours, playing on the computer with the husband. Then we went and got the best sandwiches at the deli and had ourselves a little picnic at one of my favorite places.

I spent a couple peaceful hours on the porch, watching a favorite movie on my laptop while eating an ice cream sandwich. I really need to get a daybed to put out there, for the ultimate in laziness.

We paid a visit to the feed store, where the husband looked at goslings and contemplated putting in an order for three. I’m not too sure about this addition to the farm, but he really wants some. Oh dear.

We also had a delicious dinner of seared ahi tuna with wasabi cream sauce and a tiramisu cake for dessert.

I made a little more headway on my list, and cleared up the last of the scrap wood pile. There is still the fallen down fence to contend with, but I’ll just have to tackle that a little bit at a time. We moved some railroad ties over to where the wood pile was, to create an edging for a little planting bed on the edge of the future patio. The chickens hung out with me while I gardened, which was great, at first, as they scratched and pecked and turned the dirt and grow mulch for me, so I didn’t have to do it. I rewarded them with all the worms I found as I dug holes to plant a dozen creeping rosemary plants. It wasn’t so great later, after I finished planting and laid down some wood chip mulch, when they went back and scratched it all up looking for more worms, and nibbling on the rosemary.

Speaking of chickens, one of the Ruby’s has gone broody. For the non-chicken people out there, that means she wants to hatch some eggs, and has planted herself in a nesting box, hoping for some baby chicks. Ifirst noticed that she was sleeping in the box one night last week when I closed the coop. I thought it was odd, but figured she just wanted to get away from everyone else on the roost. But she planted herself in there all weekend and wouldn’t budge. I kept taking her out and carrying her to different places, giving her little treats to eat, but she keeps going back. I’m starting to get a little worried. I collect all the eggs, every day, and even moved the golf balls (we put them in the nesting boxes so the girls will know to go in there and lay rather than outside the coop. They just think they’re other eggs.) out of that particular box. She’s still sitting in there, even though she’s not actually sitting on any thing. I think the next thing I try is to put an ice cube underneath her. It doesn’t sound too nice, but if she doesn’t stop, she could get really weak and sick. Broody hens only leave their nest once a day to eat and drink and poop. Silly girl! I must have taken her out of the box about a dozen times this weekend. She’s in the favorite box, too, so the other hens put up a fuss when they go in to lay. Any chicken experts out there have any suggestions?

We finished off birthday weekend last night with ribs and corn on the cob for dinner while watching a recorded episode of Battlestar Galactica, followed by a couple Advil for the aching muscles from the woodpile clearing, and a good night’s sleep :o)

Read More

I keep spending all my free time outside, but I do have to come inside (reluctantly) when it gets dark. So I’ve done a little more rippling. I had to snap this picture quick, as my camera battery was dying, so I’m not thrilled with the picture, but you get the idea. Crochet uses such unique hand muscles, sometimes I feel like my left hand is a gnarled old claw. But I just ‘shake it off’ and keep going. I’m just adding colors as I go, nothing is planned out, and I’m okay with how it’s looking. It’s so interesting what the colors do as you add them. The first orange stripe looked so vibrant when the yarn was in a ball, but the stripe itself, I’m not crazy about. It’s sort of darker and browner than I expected. And I wasn’t liking the light grey at all, but now that I see this picture, it doesn’t bother me much, it sort of blends in and isn’t too noticible. I love the way the whole thing changes with each new stripe. Of course now I want to try some granny squares, but I’m determined to stay focused until this is done. Good luck to me!

Read More

Update: I’m going to keep the contest going until Monday (midnight, PST), so don’t forget to say hi and you’ll be entered!It’s been one of those weeks where I leave for work at 8:00 in the morning, after feeding chickens, making lunch and whatever other little chores need doing, and then, after working all day, running multiple errands, including a visit to the dentist that wasn’t much fun, and pulling back into my driveway at 8:00 in the evening, after which I flop on the couch, eat a PB & J sandwich and try, unsuccessfully, not to fall asleep in front of the TV. I’m so tired that I’m not even going to try and re-write that very awkward sentence. Anyway, the point is that I’ve not been organized enough this week to take pictures of the first prize goodies, and I want to share those before I close the contest.

Update #2: No good picture of the special handbound book, but I promise it’s cute. I did, however, make a cute bag to hold all the loot for the grand prize winner. Here it is, along with the knitted rose corsage pin:

I was careful to include the mother hen and chicks fabric :o)

I’ve finally gotten it sort of together for the promised celebration give-away. I really appreciate everyone who comes here and reads my little blog, especially those that aren’t actually related to me. I also love love love getting comments, so those of you who regularly lurk will have to come out of lurkdom, since you’ll have to leave a comment to have a chance to win.

My sister suggested I make it a little challenging and have a quiz, so I will, but I promise it won’t be all that hard. Here are the rules:

I have four sets of gocco printed and stamped postcards (with a little stamping on the back side as well, from a hand carved stamp, fancy!) and four sets of gocco printed bookplates (they don’t have adhesive, you have to tape or glue them yourself. I’m just not that high-tech yet) and four mix CDs for four lucky winners. Three of the winners will be drawn from a pool of everyone who comments on this post between now and this  Friday, March 9th.  All you have to say is hi and you’re in! Although I’d love to know how you found me and how long you’ve been visiting.

A first prize winner will also get a little hand-bound book and knitted rose corsage (pictures to come in the next day or two). Everyone who correctly answers the five questions below will go into the drawing for the first prize. They aren’t too hard, and can all be found somewhere on my blog and/or Flickr account.

1. When is my birthday?
2. How many siblings do I have and what are their internet names?
3. Name at least three of my pets, past or present (chicken names are acceptable).
4. What kind of car do I drive?
5.How many Flickr contacts do I have? (I promise not to add any between now and Friday) :o)

And since my sister already asked, of course if you are related to me, you can have any of the above items if you are interested, just let me know :o)

Read More