The Birth of New Books

There's a fantastic artist named Jean Olivier Heron who does wonderful "The Birth of..." whether it be the birth of boats, or automobiles, or famous landmarks.  This isn't nearly as cool as that, but I wanted to show a some of the process I go through to create a new book.

For me, the book starts with the cover, whether it be a piece of paper or cloth.  If it's cloth, I have to make book cloth to protect the fabric from being stained by glue. So I start out with my cloth and rice paper and wheat paste. I make a nice even layer of it on the paper, press on the cloth smoothly but firmly, and then stick it on a clean piece of glass to let it dry.  I use my window, and after I'm finished, take a razor blade and windex to the window.

Here's some of the finished book cloth, ready to be made into a notebooks or journals.

This time around, I decided how to bind the books based on my fabric size.  The books using the pirate and the navy blue fabric are going to be bound with a chain stitch, while the books with the red fabric covers will be bound on cords.  It took me a while to figure what I was going to do, because I was using leftover boards from another project.

And here's the boards, cut and holes drilled.  I'm so thankful that my dad is a carpenter!  It used to take me  a long time to hack away with a razor blade and make one cut, but now I can use the band saw and drill press and get everything finished in less than 30 minutes!  As you can see, I've got some pocket sized notebooks that are headed for Etsy.

And here's where I left the covers tonight, ready to finish gluing up.  Tomorrow I'll fold paper and get down to sewing.