Coptic Bound Book

Check it out!  I bound a book!  It's not the first one I've ever done, but it is definitely the best!  I followed an on-line tutorial for a double needle coptic binding, used signatures that I folded at the Athens Art brown bag lunch lecture on book binding, and felted my own cover decoration (the cardboard covers were first covered with a cream, linen-like fabric, then the felted decoration was sewn to the cream cover).  After all was said and done, I discovered that the book was so nice, I was hesitant to write in it!  So I gave it to a friend.  She was thrilled to get a new journal book!

Just so I remember, the decorations on the felt are all crocheted.  Anita Mayer in her DVD "Creative Cloth" describes using crochet chains as embroidered embellishments as well as yarn wound rings.  My rings are 100% yarn--no plastic inside.  I started with a sliding loop and crocheted over that.

Bookbinding

My local art gallery, Athens Art, had a brown bag lunch series this summer.  Unfortunately, I missed all but the last one.  But the last one was good!  Marianne Ballenger did a "make and take" discussion on bookbinding.  As part of the discussion we each made a fan fold book.  That's my cute little book in the photo  The plaid cover is wallpaper.  The blue lining is just a flat, blue paper.  I don't know what the inside paper (that we folded) is.

The two best things from the presentation (aside from seeing some good friends there...That was probably the best part of it!) were 1)learning there is a paper store not terribly far from here--Twinrocker Handmade Paper!  and 2)learning Marianne's "if you can only have one reference book" book title--Cover to Cover by LaPlantz.

Of course, I am working on a project with a looming deadline.  So, my excursion to the paper store is going to be after my project is done!  There is nothing like a project with a deadline to make me want to start tons of unrelated projects!

So, while I didn't go to the store, I did fold some signatures from copy paper and followed an on-line tutorial for coptic binding and made this cute little book.  I'll need to make a few more of these for practice.  My stitches are a bit wobbly and the holes in my signatures are a bit misaligned....but, I made the book and I'm hoping to make more.