Love Is Love

Handmade Journal

Cloth for cover
Scraps of cloth
Needle and thread
Glue and brush
Cardboard
Scissors
Utility knife
Ruler
Awl

Pencil
Blank paper
Decorative paper- two pieces

4 piece of wax paper
Wooden boards
Brick or other weight

Cut out two pieces of card board for the cover that are each 5" wide by 9'' tall.

Cut one piece of cardboard for the spine that is 9' tall and 1" wide.

Create the cover. Use any fabric or heavy paper you have avialable.

Cut a piece of material 11" tall by 14" wide.

Heavy cotton, canvas, upholstry fabrics work well. Avoid light cotton and silk.

Heavier paper, such a cardstock is good choice as well.

There should be about 1" extra material on all four sides.

I used a vintage pink velvet and sewed on strips of modern and vintage cotton and silk strips to make a rainbow pattern. I also did some hand stitching on the cover for more detail.

Glue the cardboard pieces to the cover.

Using a long ruler, draw a straight line across the bottom of the fabic or paper. Make a mark at 1" and lay the first cover piece down on cover material. Mark the edge of the first cover piece. Measure 3/8" from that edge and make a mark. Measure 1" and make a mark. Measure an additional 3/8" along the ruler and make another mark.

Put glue on one side of each piece of cardboard. Glue the piece as seen in the first picture, using the long line along the bottom to keep it straight and the marks to place your cardboard pieces. Flip over and smooth out any wrinkles or air bubbles.

Miter or angle cut all four corners of the book cloth and glue down all four flaps to the inside of the book cover. The second photo shows what it should look like when all glued down.

Gather paper to make the inside text block. For the size cover discussed in Step 1, you can use 8 1/2 x 11 paper folder in half. Fold enough paper to make 8 bundle of 5 piece of paper each. You might need to trim a little off the edge to make it fit and have a straight outer edge.

Using a scrap piece of paper, line it up with inside fold of the folded paper. With a pencil, make a mark at approximately 1/4" from one end, then a 1/4" from the other. Make four more marks, evenly spaced between the end ones for a total of six marks.

Using an awl and the guide, pierce through each bundle of papers, from the inside to the outside, at each mark on the guide. Eventually, it should look like the 5th picture.

Measure enough thread to sew everything together. A good rule of thumb is to roughly use enough length as long as the total number of signatures. Thread the needle with one end of the thread and tie a knot at the other end.

Select some fun paper to go on either end of the text block. Make sure the decorative side is facing inside. Poke similar holes in both end sheets useing awl and guide.

Begin with one end sheet--the decorative one--and begin at one end with a theaded needle. Start from the outside of the folded paper and sew in and out through all the holes until you get to the end. The needle and thread should be out the outside of the folded paper.

Grab the first stack, or signature, of folded paper and use a binder clip to clip the decorative paper to the first folded signature, so that the clip is in the middle of the first signature. Using the needle, go into the first hole at one end and out the second. Before you sew into the third hole, loop under the string on the outside of the decorative sheet you previously sewed. Then into the third and out the fouth, loop under string again and into the fifth and out the sixth (final hole). At the end, tie the treaded needle to the little tail remaing from the first stitch.

Continue until all the pages and signatures are sew together.

Put the newly sewn text block under something heavy--I use a brick--and place at the end of your table. The stitching on the outside of the spine should be facing you

Meaure the length and thickness of the spine and cut a piece of paper that exact size.

Cut a piece of material-- thin fabric or cheese cloth-- that is slightly shorter than the spine and about 2 x the thickness.

Put glue on the spine, covering the stitchig then and put the thin fabic centered on the spine. Then glue on the piece of paper. Rub with something to make it all stick together. I am using a bone folder. The non-cutting edge of a butter knife would also work.

Your text block should look like the final photo.

Using two piece of wax paper, put the both under the thin fabic that is overhanging the spine. Put glue on the overhanding fabric on one side of the text block. Remove one piece of wax paper, leaving the other under the glued fabric overhang

***Do not put glue on the outside of the spine.

Line it up within the cover you made earlier and push it all the way against the spine. Close the cover of the book over the text block.

Flip over and do the same on the back side of the text blook and close the book

Place the closed book between two wooden board and then put a weight on top to add pressure.

Let dry under pressure of a least 4 hours

Remove from press. Add glue to the white side of the decorative paper and glue to the cover--smoothing out and wrinkles as you press down Do the other side.

Done!