Quick Binding--Japanese Journal

Completed Book

Did you ever have one of those weeks where your mind was totally settled on crafting/creating but your schedule just wouldn't allow it? My entire week has been like this. I barely made it for the Iron Craft Challenge but I put a project together that I was really pleased with.

I didn't get home until 1:30 am this morning and I didn't have a project to share for today's blog entry. I went to sleep hoping for some inspiration through osmosis and when I woke up at 6:30 am this project popped into my head.

This was a project that I had thought about for months and had added it to my personal craft journal as something to complete in the future--well, the future was now.

The finished book is 4.25" in width by 6" in height. I took 18 pieces of scrap Crane Letra lightweight paper (text weight) and fold the 8.5 " by 6" sheets in half to create the text block (18 sheets of paper). I took two sheets of Japanese paper for the front and back paper covers. I used a half inch turn in for the covers and glued the first and last pages of the signature directly to the paper covers.

This is a Japanese Journal in the true sense of the word in that the open ends of the pages are actually sewn together in the stab binding leaving the folded edge as the foreedge.

Detail of the front paper cover

The stab binding is a traditional four hole binding. I did not know how to finish the final knot so I just tied it to the front of the journal since I was using a thin bookbinding thread. Once bound, I simply added a bit of glue to the foreedge of the cover to secure the endsheets (which are the first and last pages of the signatures). In the above photo, I realized I didn't take a picture of the covers so I gently separated the pages so I could take a picture. I then re-glued the sheet for the finish product below.

The glued front endsheet.