I was contacted by someone on Etsy who was a fan of my Yuzen Waves Mini Journal but wanted something bigger, that could be used as an album for collecting her mosaic inspirations. I set out to create a custom coptic stitch hand bound book for her, and here are the photos of the process!
above: holes punched in the cover, gold eyelets set in the holes, pages folded and the foredge of the book being trimmed.
Here I am sewing with a curved needle, handy for getting underneath a previous stitch to form the chain stitch needed to create a coptic style binding. I think I need to get a little bit of a thinner needles though! I’m sewing with waxed Irish linen thread.
Voila! The finished album! 6×9″, with spacers for the additional material that will fit in there when the book is full. The paper is Japanese and handmade, silkscreened with many layers of vibrant ink to produce a rich, tactile surface. You can’t really tell in the photos but the gold is slightly reflective.
What a beautiful piece of work!!! Fabulous!
Love this book. I am trying out the coptic binding. Great information.
I learned how to sew mine from Keith Smith’s Non Adhesive Binding Volume 1 “Single Needle Coptic Stitch”. For a long time I used a straight needle, but more recently have switched to curved and I think it’s easier, once you get the hang of it!
Love, love! Seriously, you could pick out all my paper and I would love every piece. I can’t get enough of those japanese screenprinted gorgeous, colorful gems of paper. = )