ART AND BOOKBINDING · FIRST PROJECT GUIDE

Your first hand-bound sketchbook, with every material choice explained.

A sketchbook you have bound yourself opens flat, takes the paper you actually draw on, and costs less than the shop-bought equivalent once you have the tools. This guide walks through one beginner project, a soft-cover book sewn with a pamphlet stitch and then a step up to a hard cover, and explains why each material is chosen.

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ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU NEED?
Compare beginner bookbinding supplies: tools, thread, glue, board, cloth and paper.

Who this is for

You draw, paint or journal, or you are a home-school family making a book that will actually be used rather than admired. You have a table, a ruler and a craft knife, and you are prepared to make one imperfect book before a good one.

Choose the paper by the medium

Mixed-media paper in the 200 gsm range is the most forgiving first choice: it draws well, takes light washes, and folds cleanly. Buy a pad or loose sheets larger than your finished page so you can trim after folding.

Grain direction: the detail that decides whether the book opens flat

Machine-made paper has a grain, the direction most fibres lie. Paper folds cleanly and pages turn easily when the fold runs parallel to the grain; fold against it and the spine cracks and the pages fight you. To find the grain, flex a sheet gently in both directions: it bends more easily with the grain. Mark the grain direction on every sheet and on the board before cutting. This one habit separates a book that opens flat from one that does not.

Project 1: a soft-cover pamphlet sketchbook

Materials

• 8 to 10 sheets of 200 gsm mixed-media paper, folded in half with the grain, nested into one section
• One cover sheet of 250 to 300 gsm card, folded the same way
• Waxed linen thread, about three times the height of the spine
• A bookbinding needle (blunt, with a large eye), an awl or a sturdy needle for pricking holes, and a bone folder or the back of a spoon

Method

1. Fold each sheet with the grain and burnish the fold with the bone folder. Nest the folded sheets inside the cover.
2. Mark three or five evenly spaced points along the inside of the fold and pierce through all layers with the awl.
3. Sew a pamphlet stitch: in through the centre hole from outside, out through the top, back in through the bottom (skipping the centre), out through the centre, then tie off around the long centre stitch on the outside.
4. Trim the fore-edge with a ruler and craft knife if the pages step out unevenly.

This book takes about half an hour once the materials are cut, and it teaches grain, folding and tension before you invest in board and glue.

Project 2: step up to a hard cover

Once the pamphlet is second nature, sew three to five sections together with a simple link or kettle stitch, and case them into boards.

• Book board (greyboard) of about 2 mm thickness, cut with the grain running head to tail. Two cover boards and a narrow spine strip.
• Cover material: bookcloth is easiest for a first hard cover; decorative paper works but tears more readily at the corners.
• Adhesive: PVA for board and cloth gives a strong, fast bond; a PVA and wheat-starch paste mix dries more slowly and lets you reposition. Avoid rubber-based or hot glue for anything you want to last.
• Mull or a strip of cotton glued over the sewn spine strengthens the join between text block and cover.

Press the finished book under weight overnight with clean paper between the cover and the text block, so moisture from the glue does not warp the boards.

The lower-cost route

For the pamphlet book you can use ordinary strong thread run over a candle or a block of beeswax, a large darning needle, a drawing pin to pierce holes, and a spoon as a folder. Cereal-box card makes a passable soft cover. Buy the proper tools when you know you will make a second book; most people do.

Before you buy

• Decide what medium the book is for and pick one paper weight for the whole project.
• Check the sheet size: it must fold to your page size with a margin to trim.
• Find the grain on a sample sheet before ordering a pad.
• Start with the soft-cover project; leave board and glue for the second book.