This was a wonderful project to make my very own sketchbook. It made me ridiculously happy making this book and to now use it. The workshop leader was Ali Ferguson, who says that she makes these sketchbooks at the start of each new textile project that she embarks on.
We first started by choosing 21 pieces of A4 paper for the pages inside. I used lots of old artwork from my City and Guilds course, scrap lining paper, brown paper and some craft papers. Each page was folded in half so that the finished book was A5 with 40 pages (the first and last page gets stuck to the inside covers). We had to stack the folded pages inside each other into 7 groups of 3 to make 7 'signatures'.
Next I had to decide what to use for the 3 fabric tabs that would hold the spine together, which also meant that I had to make a choice about the cover fabric. I settled on using a piece of 'machine lace', another City & Guilds sample - see my earlier blog post on how I made this. I chose to use some wide ribbon for my tabs. The significance of choosing the tabs was that it determined where to pierce holes for the stitching on the spine.
The technique for marking the holes was to take a strip of paper the height of the pages, fold in half and half again to get quarter points. Then the fabric tabs are going to lie equally over the 3 fold lines. In addition a hole is marked 2cm in from the top and bottom - 8 holes marked in total. I then used a thick needle to poke the marked holes in each of the signatures. Incidentally, in the above photo you can see that I included a pair of envelopes in the centre of this signature, an idea I got off the internet, held temporarily in place with masking tape.
Next was the stitching. I used embroidery floss approximately 8 times the height of the book. You start by stitching from the outside of the first signature, leaving a long starting tail, and make a running stich in and out of the pierced holes up the length of the spine, going over the ribbon tabs each time. At the top you come down the next signature in the same way, and then back up the third. At the top of the third signature, you loop the thread between the first and second signatures, called a 'kettle' stitch to link the spines together. You carry on in the same way for the rest of the signatures, adding a kettle stitch at the top and bottom of each spine until all 7 are attached. I found it very useful to use a bulldog clip to keep the pages in the signature aligned as I went. It was very important to keep the thread pulled tight throughout but without accidentally ripping the paper.
The ends of the thread were finished off by threading them back in the next hole along and then tying them off on the inside with a few knots.
The final stage was to attach the covers and secure the tabs. I cut the covers from thin greyboard and covered them in blue coloured paper before attaching the machine lace using bondaweb. I then glued down the first and last pages to the inside of the covers. Next I cut a notch in the ends of the ribbon to stop it fraying before making a large stitch through the ribbon and cover, knotting it on the outside.
Finally I chose 3 whacky buttons to finish off. The reason I didn't stitch the buttons at the same time as stitching the tabs to the cover was because I wasn't sure I would be able to get them lined up due to my buttons having a horizontal hole rather than vertical ones.
I was delighted with the result but there was more fun to come embellishing the inside pages with:
- Deckle edge scissors
- Sticky paper tape and ribbon
- Scraps of decorated and printed paper
- Stick on eyelets, borders, flowers etc
- Hole punch
- Felt tip pens
You can trim the edges of the pages which allows the page behind to show through. I am using the book to make notes of stitch techniques picked up along the way.
Ali Ferguson said that you can use any paper but black, brown Kraft paper and vellum are her favourites. You can also add in fabric pages, preferably using a stiffish fabric in the centre of a signature. It is also possible to add fabric or stich samples into paper pages but it is recommended to reinforce the page with an additional piece of fabric glued on with glue stich behind so that any stitching won't rip out.
