The workshop was brilliant! We had such a good time and I'm so proud of the two books I brought home. The booklet above (which is upside down, it's clearly Australian), was the first we produced. It's a very simple booklet made with ordinary copier paper and a thick paper cover. It's A5.
We made holes through the pages with a bradawl and then tied it up with polyester thread, though you can also use linen thread.
I need to get me a bradawl and some linen thread as I'd like to make some more of these.
When we'd finished this booklet, I had somewhere to take some notes as we moved on to making a hardback book. Yes, this is a real-life hardback book. And I made it!
Books are made from signatures, sets of pages, which are made by folding A3 sheets of cartridge paper and slitting them with a kitchen knife.
We made 8 signature each with 8 leaves. They are rough cut as we didn't have access to an industrial guillotine, but I like the finish.
Again, holes were made with a bradawl before the signatures are stitched together. That's a piece of linen tape in the middle, it just helps to add some stability to it.
The cover is made of grey board covered with book cloth, I chose a lovely teal colour for mine. The covers aren't decorated, but they could be quite easily.
Can you see the little stripy bit below the pages on the spine? This is called a head band and apparently all hardback books have one. I had never noticed this before but Mr C had.
I was originally going to use a piece of ribbon as a page marker, but the ribbon I chose was too thick and it wasn't working out so I changed my plan.
I am unbelievably proud of this little A6 book!
