My first Coptic stitch book

I am starting work on my first Coptic stitch bookbinding project. I am using Hollander’s “Complete Single Sheet Sewing Kit”. Almost everything you need comes right in the box. In fact, this may be a good kit to start with because it even includes four sewing needles and an awl. Very useful tools for any bookbinding project.

Here is a first shot before I get started.

I ended up using the awl I purchased from Hollander’s a while ago. It’s thinner and has a better handle on it. Ome thing they don’t mention in the instruction book is that you need something to punch all these holes on. I flipped over the box that the kit came in and used that.

This entire book is composed of two covers, two flyleafs, and twenty single pages. A rather short book, but that’s becausd the paper used in Coptic binding style books has to be much heavier so that it doesn’t tear.

One of the problems I’ve had with threading the needles for bookbinding is getting the heavy duty waxed thread through the eye of the needle. I found an easy way to fix that now. I used my bone folder to flatten out one end of the thread and since it’s waxed, it stays flattened and slips right through. A helpful hint for those just getting started.

The first holes sewn through the cover.

Unfortunately, there is not much to see as the work continues. Maybe when I have about half of the book assembled, I will take another picture. So far it is a lot of threading through the paper in a simple but careful manner. I did not use the thread they sent with the kit because I wasn’t fond of the color. The covers are white, the flyleafs are black, and the pages are off-white. The thread with the kit was purple, but I have an off-white thread I use for binding folios that I thought would look nicer.

This is the flyleaf, the cover and six interior pages done. The spine braids aren’t looking too bad for my first attempt.

The completed spine:

The front cover:

The inside front cover:

The inside back cover:

Finally, the interior:

And that’s a wrap. Let’s hear it for insomnia, jet lag, and Lemon Chiffon Rooibos tea.

Deconstructing the Coptic

I decided on a design for my CoreCon 2011 art project. I’ll be doing a Coptic-style book with the theme of Myth & Magic in mind. I’ve been considering my options and I have an idea of what I want to do.

My first thought was to use leather for the covers and as the stitching for the spine. I’d like to avoid using animal byproducts if at all possible, so that scuppers the leather idea. Although that did give me an idea to do a dragon-hide book. Without leather, I’m left with wood and plant products.

I saw a book design idea online that involved using hemp and that piqued my interest. Seems like a good idea. I’ll use hemp string and hemp paper for the primary book components.

I haven’t mentioned the covers yet, because I’m still searching for an idea of how to do those. I’ve considered pieces of tree bark, pressed plant fibers, and other materials, but nothing is really striking me as of yet. I’ll keep searching for a solution to this part of the project.

With hemp paper and stitching, those should give it good archival qualities. The next design piece is the size. This is where I’ll be deviating just a bit from my normal standards. Right now, I want to make this a big book. A “tome” of sorts. Based on the paper sizes I can easily get and for a reasonable price, I’m looking at making the pages at least 13″ a side. Working with such large sheets of paper should be an interesting challenge.

I want rougher paper to provide bulkier signatures. The signatures will each be composed of 4 folios (a folio is a single sheet of paper, folded in half), providing 16 pages (a page is one side of one folio) per signature. It will be a minimum of 4 signatures, more likely it will be 8 signature, making a 128 page book. The rougher paper will also make the book easier to use for water-color paintings or acrylics.

The final touch to make it an artistic piece is to decorate the border of each page. That’s as laborious as it sounds. I’ll build a template to lie on each page. Actually, a couple of templates would be a good idea to vary the design a bit.

All of this is pie in the sky, but the ideas are forming and it wouldn’t be difficult to accomplish in about a month or so once I got started. The sticking point at this time is the covers. Once I can get past that, I think I’ll be ready to start.