Winter is here!

I made my son a winter hat or "beanie," as we call them in SA, and all his art student friends thought it was great! We now have a thriving business going. You can guess of course who is making the money and who is doing the work! I really do enjoy making them though, especially now that the weather has turned cooler.
I'm not quite sure how the jacket came about, I can assure you that isn't the usual dress code!

Bookbinding part 2

Part 2 of the bookbinding project! The tricky part is to attach the stitched pages to the cover. I reinforced the spine with a piece of paper and the cover with two pieces of cardboard. It's quite difficult to get everything lined up. You also have to put glue, just the right amount, on the spine so that the pages sort of stick together.

The book at the top has the right amount of glue, the one below, not enough hence the gaps inbetween the pages.Too much glue however seeps onto the pages.

I was reluctant to reinforce the spine because it covered up all my beautiful stitching.I tried some fabric tape but the glue I have didn't work so I reverted to paper.

When sticking the cover pages its best to put a piece of paper inbetween to stop the glue going everywhere.

The cover page attached to the cover. As you can see its all a bit bubbly, maybe the application or the type of glue. Not sure which but will have to investigate a bit more.

Finally! A completed book!
All a bit wobbly but much better than my first attempt.

Bookbinding

I came across this fantastic blog myhandboundbooks a while ago and have been hooked ever since! I went onto u tube and found a tutorial on bookbinding and let me assure you, it is far more difficult than it looks! The pic below is my third attempt and looks O.K. but the cover still has to be attached and that's very tricky. The most difficutl part, I think, is getting the thread pulled tight without tearing the paper. The thread is covered in wax (I just rubbed it over a candle) and stiched in rather a complicated pattern creating a sort of chain stich up the spine of the book.

This is my second attempt and as you can see, very loose. I did manage to attach a cover but not a covered spine. Now of course the next step is paper. The paper I used is recycled but not 'rustic' or 'handmade' enough. I did a paper making course a long time ago and all I remember is a lot of messy pulp and lots of water. I think I 'll just have to scrounge some scraps from a very clever papermaking friend!

I also think that the more natural the paper the less it matters how precisely the pages are cut or fit. Reading other bookbinding blogs I am amazed at what they 'bind'-used envelopes, old letters, back of cards, wrapping paper, the list is endless!

Well, I'm going to keep trying and hope to improve. At the moment it takes ages and an overheated computer from stopping and starting the tutorial over and over again. I have a book but the instructions are not easy, for me anyway, to follow.The most exciting thing is decorating the covers but I havn't quite got there yet!