More adventures in book binding
It seems that I have caught the book binding bug…
Yesterday I had another day off, as a consequence of feeling perpetually tired and needing to rest. Originally, I wanted to stay at home and read, take it slow, spend a nice day properly relaxing, but I decided to go to the city centre and buy some art supplies for my book binding journey. I spent an absurd amount of money on some stuff that is not optimal (I found this out the hard way after trying everything at home), but I also got some swanky stuff. A bigger cutting mat, for example, because I realised that the A4 one I bought from the workshop would be too small for the bigger notebooks I want to make. And a lot of greeting cards that I can use as notebook covers; the shop I went to had a good selection, with some that have dreamy, interesting illustrations. Here’s a few notebooks I made yesterday:
My favourite one is the swimming pool one, part of a series of cards illustrated by Ana Popescu. I love this illustration so much. The colours are calming and it reminds me a bit of some manga I’ve seen. I also purchased another card (with another swimming pool on it!) by the same artist, which I’ll make it into a companion book. The “I found cod” one is my first bigger notebook—not quite A5, which is annoying as I’ve purchased a lot of A4 paper I assumed I could just fold in half and call it a day. Because the size is somewhere between an A5 and an A6, I had to cut the pages down with my scissors, giving it a wonky, rugged look. I also learnt that it’s not great to punch big holes in the cover; I had assumed it would make it easier to fit the needle and thread through, but actually this creates an effect that is a bit unbecoming; if the cover is a darker colour, the frayed, raised holes look even more stark. Not pretty!
Then today I woke up and, after lazily playing some video games and struggling to concentrate, I chose to try and do some more book binding. I know that the workshop I went to also offers Japanese book binding classes, buy because I won’t be able to go back for a while, I thought I could look up a tutorial and try by myself. I have, after all, acquired the very basic skill of punching holes with and awl and pushing needle and thread through layers of paper; anything else is extra. I opened a step by step guide on YouTube and proceeded with making a dummy notebook just to get acquainted with this specific technique. Here’s my dummy.
I had assumed that any kind of paper would be fine for a dummy (and I still think this to an extent), but after making this with just five A5 sheets, I realised that it would’ve been smarter to make it look more proper from the start, and maybe add a tougher, harder kind of paper as a front and back cover. The binding is wonky because I didn’t really line up the holes with a ruler, and it shows. Moreover, the end result would’ve probably looked better if I used a slightly chunkier kind of thread, but as of right now, I only have this red thread I bought with my book binding kit from the workshop. That being said, I really like the overall look and I can already see how I could implement it for future projects. If I were, for example, to write a short story, I could print it and bind it myself to keep it forever on my shelf as a physical, real book. Isn’t that exciting? I like making something out of nothing, and this book binding thing has opened up new possibilities for me.
When I get curious about something, that initial hype only lasts for a while. A couple weeks if I’m being generous. So I’m hoping that this new passion will last longer, because I’m really enjoying the physical act of it and all the possibilities it brings. Handmade gifts, zines, small, collaborative art projects. There’s a lot I could do with this if I really tried. Let’s see where this takes me!