When it came to sewing all the signatures and tipped in sheets together I found I was hitting quite a few design problems due to the the way I had comprised the sheets and designed the book. the quality of the paper being thin, torn and fragile meant that I couldn’t use the tick linen thread I would usually use for binding that gives strength and stability and instead I had to use a finer cotton thread making the book block even more fragile. I also found sewing the tissue paper and tracing paper prints into the signatures tricky because of the brittleness. I designed a sewing pattern that allowed for all the sizings of the pages to line up and accurately be sewn together. I decided to bind it into a hard back cover as it gives it protection and strength as well as conceal the pages within.
Making the hard back cover went okay but it was important that I was extremely accurate with measuring and cutting the grey board and the book cloth. I decided to use a more plastic looking book cloth that they have in uni , this is purely for the protection of the pages within. I decided on grey as it found it complimented the colour of the sheets within.
If I were to sew this book again I would consider the order and the way I sew them together prior to sewing then, I decided to combine concertina pages (that concealed translucent sheets with classic signatures making the actual sewing more challenging). I was hoping to take more images of the process but this part of making a book is some time critical that I forgot and i wouldn’t have had time before the glue dries.
Lara Hoad Artist Designer: Maker 