Bare-Spine Beauty: Master the Art of Coptic Bookbinding

1. Introduction: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Bear Spine Beauty, Master the Art of Coptic bookbinding. This workshop is designed to introduce you to the beautiful and versatile Coptic bookbinding technique. Known for its exposed stitching and flat laying design, this method is perfect for creating functional and visually stunning handmade journals. Throughout the class, we'll cover every step of the process from preparing your materials to sewing the signatures that hold your book together. You'll learn how to craft gorgeous covers, and I'll show you how to add some unique flare by incorporating vintage and decorative papers into your pages. I'm Denise Love, an artist and creative educator, and I'm excited to bring you this fun and exciting dive in the handmade art journals. Together, we'll create two journals, one with your favorite watercolor papers and another featuring a mix of watercolor and specialty papers for an eclectic creative look. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced crafter, looking to expand your skills, this class will leave you with a beautiful finished journal and the confidence to design more. Let's get started, bring your artistic vision to life through coptic bookbinding. 2. Class Project: Class project, you'll create your own handmade coptic bound journal with exposed stitching and your unique artistic style. Start by choosing your materials, painted papers or handmade papers for the covers and a mix of pages like watercolor, vintage or decorative papers inside. Design your covers, and then bind your journal with the coptic stitch. Add personal touches to make it one of a kind and share your finished project and creative process in the class gallery. I can't wait to see your beautiful journals. 3. Supplies: Take a look at the supplies that we'll be using in class today. We're going to be making a couple of the coptic journals, and we'll be making them all in the same way, but I want to just give you some ideas. These are some ones that I have previously made and just love. And what I love about these is they lay flat as you start working through them. The each section will lay flat. I'm using really thick watercolor papers, so even though they lay flat, if I'm in the center part here, I'd probably still clip them with a binder clip just to pull them down because they're springy. But I do love them because they're gorgeous when they're done. What I particularly love about these versus the other journals that we've made is the spine. On the other ones that I've made that I've been using, I've got a really pretty built in spine where everything is enclosed, whereas these have all the inside showing and maybe some pretty stitching and a fun color holding the book together. That's what I really, really love about it. The cover, the exposed spine, and then whatever your favorite paper is to work on inside. This is one that I made with a super fun inside there with the red, and then I made a pretty blue one with the inside being a blue and a tan colored thread. And this one is I love this paper of a Japanese cherry blossom. That's what that reminds me of anyway. And then pretty paper there on the inside. And these are all made with my favorite watercolor paper because I like working in books now. For doing my work because then I don't have to store the pieces of art in a closet. Here's another one that I've made with the fun inside and the watercolor paper because now I've decided, why store things in the closet when I can put them in a book and the book itself is a piece of art, and then all the finished pieces in the book are pieces of art that has become my favorite way to create. Now they're stored in a lovely bound journal that I can take down and share and take with me. I don't have my art sitting in a closet. So I have made these with the intention of using one pack of your very favorite paper. That's where I want you to start. One pack of your very favorite paper. So I'm using in class the Hnomle cold press watercolor paper. I picked nine by 12 because that was a good size. That is what this size is. It's a nice size to paint on. It's not too big and overwhelming. But I can accomplish quite a bit in here. I'm also going to make a few of these even larger for myself, but I did start off with the nine by 12 and one book requires one pad of paper. What I really love about this and here's one that I have cut up and ready to go is our front cover that we're going to be doing is the back cover of our pad of paper. That back cover is a super thick piece of cardboard that is perfect for your bookboard for the front and the back. And so you just cut that in half and now you have the perfect size bookboard for the paper that you've pulled out of that pad. This pad has 12 pieces of paper in it, which is perfect for four sections. Each section has three pieces of paper. It's nice and thick paper, so the sections, I wouldn't want them to be really any thicker than that. So it's absolutely a perfect size to then bind together. That is my goal for you, pick your very favorite paper, and one pad of paper will make one book, and then you don't have to feel so bad about using a better quality paper because you've made an entire book out of one pad. This pad, I've been getting these off Amazon for around $18, maybe just a tad less. I thought that was super reasonable. So all the components there for less than $18 plus whatever you finish your top with and your book tools. I mean, for, you know, as cheap as $20, you could have an amazing book to work in. I love that. So your favorite paper, I'm using the Honamule. You'll need a ruler. I like a big metal ruler for measuring and cutting with. So that's what I'm using. And a utility knife. I like these with the breakable blades because as soon as that one gets dull, I don't have to take the whole blade apart. I can snap off the one section, but I do use these to measure out the back part and then cut the back part. The book plate, this piece right here. That's what I used to cut that in half with. So you do want a cutting board on your table. If you don't want to use a pad of paper because you've already got paper, you can get bookboard for your front and back covers. What I like about the back of these watercolor pads is they're thicker than the bookboard that you can get as sheets. A nice thick cardboard will be fine, or you can order the bookboard which is flat sheets that look just like this. Then you'll need some book tools. I like the waxed thread that's made for book binding. I have that in several different colors and sizes and I really like the colored threads. I am purposely looking to make my books a little more funky and fun and so the colored threads do that for me, but this was a good one for that one where I needed basically a gold. In that blue book. A book binding thread that is waxed thread. You can wax your own thread. If you're more comfortable with book binding, you can use embroidery thread, if you want to get that and wax it because you have a special purpose for it or something. But in general, I like the book binding waxed thread the best. You'll also need some big embroidery needles. I'm using a straight needle in class, but you can certainly try the curved needles that they have for um working with the embroidery and stuff so that you can loop through the different things. I find that I'm clumsy. My hands don't do what I want them to do all the time. So even though I have these, I have just figured out that that's not my favorite needle to use, and so give it a try if you want, but I will not be using the rounded needles in class. It is certainly an option though. You'll need a bone folder, you'll need an all because this is what we poke our holes in for our signatures, our sewing things. I will be using an hu glue stick for the paper to glue onto my cover. I have found that that works fantastic for the handmade papers that I'm using. You can use PVA glue, you can use tacky glue, you can use any glue stick that you've already got. You could use probably a thick matte medium. If you've got the thick stuff, I wouldn't use the thin stuff. That's not going to hold your paper very well. You could use yes paste. Lots of options there on your glue, I'm going to go the easy way with a glue stick. I have a pencil, pair of scissors, and then in addition to your favorite paper for the inside, for one of the books, we'll be using some vintage paper. So one book is all watercolor paper. One book has other options in it. And so any kind of vintage papers, scrapbook papers, handmade papers, any kind of options there. And I have already kind of thought out my book that I'm going to make. And you'll see that here that I've got four old papers, old ledger papers that I've just collected through the years with my photography props. And I had multiples of some of these, which I have never been brave enough to use in anything other than a photo shoot that I thought, This is the project that I'm not afraid to use some of these with. And I had duplicates of all of these. You could also just scan them in and make a copy of your old papers if you don't want to use the actual old paper. I thought I'm making a class, and I'm not afraid to use these now, and I have multiples of these, some of these are 200-year-old vintage French papers, but I had several, and I'm willing to make a book with them now that I'm going to be extremely proud of because I love these art journals that I've been making more than most things that I've ever made. I love them. I've used these papers to show on the spine, so it's not just plain paper. Then other papers tucked in here, different options. So scrapbook papers, some old bags, some handmade papers, just to give myself some options because some of the very favorite parts of all the other art journals that I've made and been working in has been the decorative papers that are in the book that kind of separate different pages and they're interesting themselves. I love that aspect of these other books that I've created. So I want some of those interesting things in some of these books, and this one is going to be the one that I include some of those lovely options in. And we'll talk more about that when we get to this book project, but I want you to just start thinking, m how to level up from just the plain paper in subsequent books that you might get interested in making. Collect together any old papers, scrapbook papers, any papers that you want to scan and print and use that instead. That's your choice. I've also personally using handmade papers. I get all of these at the **** Blick and you can get them at blick.com if you don't have a Blick store near you. But I've pulled some papers. These are the ones that I've used in that one that I just showed you that's coming. But these are some papers I haven't used yet, and I'm like, oh, I want to use these. And so I'm going to go super funky on one book and do a cover and an inside maybe. And then on the second book, maybe this would be the vintage paper one. Because I can see all the vinag papers coming out next to these. I don't know what they are, but they look like maybe poppies or something. So we'll call them Poppies the poppy paper. Then the other one. But maybe this could be the vinagePaper one. Look at this. We're going to be doing that orange and that pink, and it's crazy, so we'll decide as we go along in class, what papers I'm going to use on my covers. So that's one option. You can use handmade papers from the art store. You can get these online. If you don't have an art store near you, you can also paint your own papers, and you could use craft paper would be a fine base to paint your own papers. Then use those as your covers. You could use a piece of your artwork as the covers. You can get creative here on how you finish your book. I'm going to make handmade papers as my covers. That's the basics of all the supplies. This is probably the least amount of supplies for book binding that I have used. Because we're not getting into sewing and fabric and spines and all the other stuff. This is one of the very first methods of bookmaking that appeared hundreds of years ago. The Egyptians started binding books like this and I just find that the beauty and simplicity and the artistic look that you can create in that simplicity, super fun. I can't wait to get started with you guys. Here's most of the supplies, gather at least a pad of paper and your bookmaking pieces and then I will see you back in class. 4. Cutting Cover and Punching Holes: Alright, so let's get started. So I'm using one pad of paper for my first book, and I'm using the Honamule paper because it's my favorite watercolor paper. And what I like about using one pad of paper is it's an inexpensive way to get an entire book made with just one pad of paper, which I think is kind of amazing. And this paper is very thick. The only thing I don't like about the Honamula one is when you pull these out of the pad, you got the glue stuck to the edge, which normally wouldn't be a problem except it's black. So I will have to pick the glue off the edge, but it is still my favorite paper. I have large sheets of paper that I could use if I wanted to cut those into a size to make a book out of. I wanted to keep this simple and we will go with one pit of paper to make one book as our first book that we make so that you can get your feet wet and see that this doesn't have to be expensive, even if you use nicer paper and I'll work on those edges later. First one I tore out of here, this whole glue thing stayed. And I'm like, Oh, that was nice. And then these are just tearing with each sheet of paper. So tear all your pieces out, and now you get lucky and have white glue. Clear glue has the edge. But I've got 12 pieces, and then I will later work on getting the glue off of the one. I don't want the glue on the edge. All right, so once you got all your paper torn out, this one comes with extra sheets on the front and the back, we end up with the back piece and the paper piece. And basically, all I'm going to do is tear the cover off, and I'm ready to do my back. Paper. So basically, you want to measure this in half and then we're going to cut. There's the glue, but you want to measure it in half and cut it. What I'm going to do is because I've already done that with this, I'm just going to make it easier on myself and just go ahead with a pencil and draw the halfway mark. So we'll pretend I just measured that with a ruler and marked it with a ruler. Then I'm going to take my big ruler and I'm going to line that line up. Then usually standing up. I'm going to try to stand up without knocking stuff over. I get it right on the line and then with my knife because you can't just cut this once. The goal here is to come on and line up. There we go. The goal here is to just score it many times until you feel it cut. Once you've got it lined up, just go ahead and several times, take your time here. And cut that until you get to the very bottom of it. So just be careful. I like this ruler that I'm using now because it's got this real thick side here, so I feel less like I'm going to cut this way accidentally. There we go. So just a little bit of strength there and you'll eventually get all the way through it. I've got several little scragglies there that I'll just tack off. And there we go. Now we are ready with our bookboard and we are ready to here's our front and our back. Doesn't have to be perfect. If you've got any little scraggly pieces like that, I just pull them off from where we squirted a lot. Then if you got any glue stuck on there, go ahead and pull that off. Then our paper on our paper, we're going to now make our sections real quick. So we've got one, two, three sheets of paper. And here's where you want your bone folder. So I go ahead and fold these in half. With all three pieces stacked together because then they'll all kind of get back into the fold instead of if you fold each one individually, they stack out and they don't lay as good in that corner. Then once you do that, you want to take your bone folder and just really press that down good. That's what that's going to look like. And if the papers are even or not, I don't even I don't even care. I like the uneven nature of a handmade book. I really love it when you have a paper where the edges are decled. And so what I do there is if I'm using a big sheet of paper, I keep those hand torn edges. I really love that. But because I'm using my Honamule, pad of paper. We're not going to have the decled edges today, but I'm just throwing out some more ideas for you to think about. As you're bookmaking and looking around and thinking, Oh, what could I do to make it even better? Decled edges, hand torn edges. So a larger sheet of paper all torn down into the right size would be gorgeous. And I have some bigger sheets that I'm going to do that with for a book, but I haven't done it yet. Lots of times I collect supplies with good ideas. And sometimes it takes a while for me to get the good idea done. Now what I do is I'm going to punch our holes for our paper, and I got to measure that off. So I'm going to go ahead and mark our holes and punch our paper. This paper is approximately 9 " this way because I used a nine by 12 sheet of paper, so it's six this way and nine this way. Then what I do is I go ahead and take my pencil and I will just mark where I want the holes. You'll notice on the books that I've already made previously that I've made three holes here and three holes here and I've left a little bit of a gap. That's a decorative option that I decided to do. For my books, you could do more than what I've done. I've done three at 1 " apart, 1 " from the end, and then 1 " apart. You could also do one here in the middle. You could do fewer if you have a book where you don't need as many. I do think because these feel a little bit less strong per se, they move around, they don't feel as sturdy as a book with a spine, that I feel that you want to have enough to keep it all together and usable as you're using the book and to stand up the test of time. I think at least on this size that the six was good. I'm going to go ahead and continue with this 1 " over and then you'll notice that this has about an inch in. That was one option that I did on the books that I made, but also on these other ones, I did a little bit less than an inch. If you want less of an inch there, you could do about a half inch. That was another fun look on there. Choices. Once you see how we make these, I think I'll do similar to that. You could make yourself a cutting guide, but I've never out of a piece of watercolor paper, you could make a punch guide, but I have just marked these with a pencil and then you can erase the pencil later. But I've just come in and did my marking just like that. Then I can take my ruler and make sure these are straight and where I want them lined up because this is going to be my order that I'm doing. I'm going to put a number on the edge of each piece here. That'll keep them in order of how I punched them and drew them and that will also keep me from flipping them backwards because as I'm moving all around creating, I just loses the front? What? What's the order? How did I get these lined up to begin with? I lose all that as I'm going. I number the front to keep them all in the order I intended them to be in and then get them nice and lined up. Then I just take a pencil and very lightly make that mark all the way up on the papers. I've got one extra line here. If you get one marked wrong, that's what a pencil is good for. You could just take an eraser and just erase the line you didn't want. And now we're ready to punch the holes on these pieces. To punch the hole, I do have some whole book binding hole punch things, but I want to keep this one simple. I just fold it backwards, which gives me the outside point there to our book. Then I'm just going to take the all and go in at the angle in between here. I'm going in at a slight angle and I'm doing that because when I pull this out on the other side, I want that to be on that angle. I don't want it to be to the side of that if I can avoid it. I will say though, not all of them are perfect. I just don't get upset. If they're not perfect, I just go with it, I just roll with it, but you see I'm already flipping it around and it's already backwards from where I started and that's why I marked the little one, two, three there on our pages. Once you get all those punched, that's what that looks like, and then we can fold it back to where we had it. And then I've got the number one right here, and then I can take my bone folder and flatten that back so that it's nice and ready to sew. I'm going to punch all four of the other ones in the exact same way. Fold it backwards, go in at the slight angle to make sure you're coming out at the angle. It gets easier once you punch one or two of these and you see where that is, it gets easier. Just consider the first book as your practice book, and then all the other books after that will be where you've mastered it and you're ready to go. Because my very first one, the first two that I did, both have a bobo on them. Don't get discouraged. One of them, let's see, what that one is correct. This one's correct. No, this one, I did not tie off an extra loop right here, so you have they look a little bit looser. Maybe it's that one. This one, I missed a stitch on one of these, I missed a stitch. It's not obvious and it's not a big deal, but I missed a stitch on one of them. Oh, here we go. I missed this stitch right here. Because this is one of the earlier ones that I made. I missed a stitch and then there was a couple where I didn't tie that loop on that last one, so it looks a lot looser. It takes one or two books before you're like, ha, I got it. Then you're tying each one where you should tie it. You're not missing a stitch and they're all looking like they should. Don't get hung up on the first one. The first one is not going to be perfect, and that's fine. We all got to learn on something. Once we get our holes punched, then we're ready to mark them on our cover. Here we go. There's that one. There's number two. Number three and number one. Now all of those are ready. Now I want to mark them on my book page, my book here. What you might do with this is you could draw a line where you want these to go. For instance, I could to keep them even or you could make yourself a little punch hole cheat thing like a piece of cardboard with a little piece punched out of it. I but what I think I'm going to do is just say I wanted a right there and then I'm just going to draw myself a line. Then I could actually take these and mark those holes with my pencil, then I don't have to remeasure everything. Then if this is the front and this is the back, I could flip it to make sure. I wrote front and back on that. I could flip it to make sure that we're mirroring it basically is what I'm trying to think there. It should be the same, but you never know. You could just go ahead and do that. Because now I got the front and the back. Basically, the back is going to look like this because of where I stuck it. But don't get too hung up on that. Then what you're going to do is right where those match. Go ahead and poke your hole. Be careful. This is sharp and you're just going to come out the back side. And then just punch all of them in the same way. So I get started on the paper, and then I pick it up because I've got this cutting mat on my table, so I'm not worried about the table. But I'm worried about if I was holding it up, stabbing myself. It's because these are sharp and I'm clumsy. All right, so now we've got our holes punched there. And again, if it's not perfect, then don't get too stressed about it. It's an art book. A little bit of creativity is fine. It will be close enough for the book that you're making. And as you make more books, you can perfect your techniques. You can see how other people do things. There's a couple of different ways to do everything. I'm just showing you the way that ends up Al working for me and the way that making the books and I've made a bunch of books now and I want to enjoy the process and not worry too much about how we got there. I want to have fun. Okay, so once you've got all your pieces cut, that's basically where we are at. Back, front, and all the pieces cut, and then we will be ready to start assembling this book. I'll see you in the next video. 5. Assembling Watercolor Paper Book: Right, in this video, I'm going to make the cover here on the watercolor book. So what I'm going to do is use the handmade paper that I've got here and I'm going to cut my covers out. And on these, it does have a front and a back, and usually the sticker is the back. So what I want to do is just take a pair of scissors. I'm going to just cut these and give myself about an inch overhang because we're going to loop this in. And then I'll have the paper for the front and the back. Now, if there's a pattern on here, that placement matters, then decide that before you start cutting, and then you can cut appropriately. And these will be these will be hidden on the inside. So it doesn't matter if it's perfectly straight, that will be hiding once we get our pretty paper for the inside. So now that I've got two pieces of that cut, I want to cut the inside, and I'm going to use the inside, let this be this bright paper here. And basically, what I want on these, so I'm just going to use my exacto knife because I want to kind of line it up and then I'm going to move it just a little bit where I've got about a quarter of an inch right here and a quarter of an inch over here. See if I can move this where you can see this. But I want this overlapping where there's about a quarter of an inch short and about a quarter of an inch short because that will then allow us to have this inside page. Now we've got that slightly short with about an eighth of an inch all around and you can play with that. I'm just eyeballing it. It's not exact, and that's what we're looking for for our inside cover. That's the size I want that and I might just line that up right there. I'll cut the second piece. Again, it doesn't have to be exact. I'm just going for an approximation of, like, a quarter inch or so. You can always trim it again with your scissors if you think, Oh, I made that too big or what have you. Now we've got a second sheet. There we go, approximately the inside. Now we are done with that paper. And now we have our pages. Now we have our book cover ready. So so this would have been the inside and that would be the outside because I cut it with the face down. I've made my book marks, but I didn't do it with the paper. Now that I've done that, I'm going to glue the paper down and I'm going to go ahead and punch the paper through this part. Usually, I punch these after I've already glued this together, but I didn't on this one, so that's okay. I'm going to glue the whole thing down. Then I'll just punch through this book binding to the paper since I decided to not do that. There's something funky that I do on every piece, and if I start filming, then I completely forget where I was going to go. Once we've got all this covered, I got the edges, just not some big doll up of glue. Don't leave a big doll up. It makes a lump under your paper I have discovered. Once you've got all that, then you can just center that and stick it down and just wait a moment and then that'll be set. And then I'm going to take punch your holes after you glue your paper on, but at least you know how to do that. And while the paper is glued right here, I'm going to cut a Y out of each corner, and I want to leave a little tiny extra space there at the corner. I don't want to cut to the corner because I want to wrap the corner and not leave it raw. Leave about a millimeter or so of space to it but not all the way. I want a little bit of paper at the edge. Not too much because then you end up with a paper fold that's weird and I cut it in a y so that I make sure I'm not shorting myself when I do this here. Then after you get that on there, we are going to go ahead and glue that. So you can glue the spot. You can glue it on the board or you can glue it on the paper. If you glue it on the paper, then I recommend you have something that can be a glue catcher, like a piece of paper, and then you can glue the whole thing there. I work from side to side, edge to edge so that I'm not pulling any of the paper in a way that might shift it, if you're using a fabric or something, it could do that. I can feel the holes, so I'm just going to recreate them since I can feel them. Because the bookboard makes a little mountain when you do that. So it's easy to feel it. If you do accidentally do it all before you make the cover, this is how easy that is to fix that. There we go. Now I got all six holes punched in. Otherwise, wait till you get all this glued together and then punch the holes, but that was easy enough to fix. Sometimes it's fun to make mistakes on camera. Because then I can show you how to fix it. And when I'm talking, this is like when I'm driving. When I'm driving, I was taking a trip with a friend of mine years ago and she was like, we should take a detour. I'm like, I'm driving. We probably will. We're just chatting away and we're having some fun. And we're driving down this is before GPS has existed. I'm just making sure I definitely have a mountain on this side. This is before GPS has existed. And so we had road maps in the trunk and we're driving and we're having fun and we're talking and she's like, should take a detour and I'm like, Yeah, I'm driving, we probably will accidentally. Not even on purpose. And so we're driving and we were in, um we were in Alabama or something going towards the ocean. And then it was when we were heading back home. And we were like, Where are we at some point? Because we had been just chatting, chatting, chatting chatting. And then we came across this gas station that had a sign that said, Sasquatch Zoo. I'm like, I don't know, but it was worth it to come to see the Sasquatch Zoo. And so we're laughing and laughing and we get out the map, and we realize that we missed a turn 50 miles back. I'm like, here's your detour. So, oh, my gosh. If I'm talking at the same time that I'm doing, we might get to a different destination, even in art, even when I've made something 50 times. As I'm talking and explaining something, we may get to a different destination. But then you know how to fix it when you do that thing. So it's just not something I worry about. We'll get there. Not only do I wish that glue on this pad of paper was not black, but I also wish that this board itself was not black. I wish the board was concrete colored, cardboard colored, like the front side of it, because the black, depending on what you choose to cover it with, could show. It would be nice if it were not the dark color. But I'm sure there's plenty of other people that are like, I like it black. Then nice tight like you're wrapping a present. There we go. Let me find my little holes here and we'll just punch those back through. There we go. Quite a bit easier even than I expected to refind them after I realized what I did. Look at that. There we go. Now we got our holes for our stitches. Not going to get us. Now we're going to glue this part on, and it doesn't matter if I've got to punch through with a needle because it's thin paper and it'll punch really easily. Definitely have more than one glue stick available if you're making more than one book because it'll definitely do, one glue stick, and then it'll go into a second, maybe even a third book. But at some point, it'll definitely run out right in the middle of you gluing something like that just did. Make sure you have some extras. I just go all the way around and I'm going almost to the edge, the glue will dry clear, so I don't even worry if I get a little on the edge. Because it'll dry clear. And then there's our inside. Look how pretty that is. Lovely. All right. Let's do the other one. And like I said, you can use a variety of glues that you may have on hand if you don't want to do a glue stick. I just found this on these papers to be super easy. To use the glue stick. Then it dries clear. Once that's dry, those will be set. There's our cover, which I think is really cool. I'll just move this. Now that we've got our cover and our holes punched, we are ready to start sewing this together. Let me get my needle and decide on my thread color. Now that we've got our book ready to sew together, I'm going to go with an orange thread. And I'm going to thread the needle and I'm going to sew this with a single thread because it's thick paper. This is really thick thread. If you're using a thinner thread, then definitely double thread that. But this is really thick paper and really thick thread, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and a smidge. So what I do is I count out how many I've got, one, two, three, four, five, six, and then I count out those many links, and then I add an extra length or two, an extra length, length and a half or two links. Then I'm going to be sewing with it mostly doubled, but in the end, I'm keeping a single thread as what I'm actually keeping in the sewing. I tie a knot here in the end of the thread, and then I tie that knot a second time, so it's a double knot, and then I'm ready to start and I've got the number one, I've got a cover, and I've got number one, two, three, four, actually going to start with section number four, and I'm going to thread that into that first hole sometimes you got to get it lined back up as many times as we've moved it. I'm just getting it lined back up. Through the first hole and then it's going to be a long piece of thread. I'm going to basically have it doubled up until I get to the end. But let me just pull that through so that on the inside you can see that's holding that in there. Then we've got this coming through on the outside. I want to have as much thread as I can doubled so it's a little not as long, but I got some at the end that's single. I'm going to keep it single. We're sewing the cover and the book at the same time. Once this comes through, I'm coming through to this side of the book, and I'll go right into that first hole and we'll bring that right through to this part right here and pull that all the way through. So that it comes to about right there. Then I want this to be on the right side of that thread because I'm going to loop this around and create a loop. You're going to loop that around and we're going to create our first little loop there. That'll make sense as we're going when I say loops because we're creating loops on the whole thing. I'm going to pull that taut because it didn't have it. It was pretty loose. Then I'm going to go right back in to that first hole and then we're ready to go to the second hole. I've got the knot there. So we got to get in around the knot. There we go and pull that nice and taut, you don't want to pull it so tight that everything ends up not wanting to open and close and do what it's supposed to do. So you just have to judge that, but you don't want it loose. The goal is not to have it loose. So through the second hole and that's easier to pull it firm when you've got that second hole going, gets easier as you go. Then we're going to go right through the back of that. And then there we go. Pull that all the way through. Sometimes the threads make a knot of themselves. So let's unknot that. There we go. Then right through to the front, and I've come through on the right side of that piece of thread, pull it taunt, and I'm going to loop under that thread just making a loop there so that it'll tighten itself there. Loop right under that loop. And then you can pull it firm. So you can see now I've got two, and then we go right back in that hole and right up to the third hole. Now we're ready for the third one. We're going to do that all the way down until we get to the end. And then write around to the back of the book. And then pull that through to the right side of that piece. Pull it firm. You can now loop through that one and back in the hole. Then we're ready to go through the next hole. Loop around to the back of the book, through that hole. And then loop it in to the front side of that and to the right side of that thread. And I'm just pulling it taut as I go. Pull it too tight, your book won't line up correctly, but if it's too loose, then it feels weird. So I'm just trying to keep up as I go, not having any super loose areas, but it's hard when you're moving the book all around to keep everything tight. But the wax thread does help with that. It's just awkward as you're sewing. So don't get discouraged if you're like, Oh, it's not tightening up or it's too loose or it's not doing what I thought or what have you. It's just a little bit awkward. So through the backside, there we go. Again, loop it back through the front there to the right side of that thread and then loop it under the thread and pull it tight. Then back inside, and we're up to the very last one here. Now we have the back cover and the fourth signature sewn in the book. What we want to do to the back again, hang on I got my fingers clumsy to the back. Coming right through the cover, go back to the right side of that thread. Catching on all the edges. Then we are going to loop this through again so that we've still created our last loop, get it all lined up where you want it. Now we are ready to start sewing signature number three. We've got four, three, two, one. I'm going to take that straight from where we just left off and go into that first hole of that next signature, and then we are going to now sew this signature to the one that's there. Now you come right through that next hole. Pull it tight, and then we are going to take our needle and this is where the half looped needle might be easier for you. But I find if I hold it like that, I can loop it through that thread without a big deal. I'm just going to loop that right through that set of thread and then we've made our loop. We're going to go right back into this hole. Pull it firm, and now we have a loop and we have this one connected to this one, and we're going to go all the way down and do the same thing. So right in here. And then I just kind of hold the book. Loop it right through that thread right there. Now back in that hole. This is basically the same stitch that we use when we make the books with the covers. It's just the stitch on the front and the back where we're attaching the book cover itself, that's different. If you've already made some of the other books or you're interested in some of the other books, we're using the same binding method here on these signatures. Now, if you have the needle, try to go through that piece of thread that's in there, pull it back out, don't let it go through the center of that. You'll get stuff and it won't pull tight for you. But this is exactly how we sewed all the other ones together for the center part. The only difference is the cover stitch that we did. There we go right back in there, right back through the last one. Then what we're going to do here is we're going to loop it right through that one just like we did. And we're going to now attach number two. We're going to take that thread. Instead of going back into the one we were in, we're now going to go into the new one, and this is how we get the new one started, right through there to the inside. We're going to work our way back down that way doing that same technique. We're going to come right through here. Now we're going to attach. We're going to loop through the second loop that we just made, not the first one, you should have that original loop, and then you should have the second loop and we're going through the second loop that we just made. We're moving down each time and not going back to that first one. We're going into the second one and the next time we'll go back in to this loop that we're creating right now. Right there, and again, find the second loop, not the first loop, and then back in and I actually went right through the center of that one. So you don't have to pull everything out, but what you do need to do at this point is pull that thread out of that other thread. So to do that, I'm glad I'm glad that some of these pop up. Just so I can show you how to fix it, unthread your needle and then pull the thread out so that it's not still locked into that thread so you can pull and then thread your needle again. That's what you do if you get that stuck in the center of a thread. You don't want to leave it there and you don't necessarily want to try to unsew it because you might not get the needle back through the other way. I just doesn't work out as evenly sometimes. So we got our needle threaded again and we got our thread separated where we sewed in there. All right. Back down to the fourth one. And then We're going to sew this right here. And then back inside after we loop it. Then we'll loop the second one. But on this one, we're not going back on this one, we're not going back in to that loop on the last one. Now we're ready to attach this one. Some methods show you how to attach this one and the cover at the same time. I find that confusing, especially if you're just learning the different book techniques. I'm going to attach the cover separately. We're going to go through and attach this layer just like we did all the other ones. Go in, sew it through your loop you know, pull it tight. Loop into the third one now, not the first two that we did. Now, if you find it really hard to push this through and not get snagged on the paper, what you could do is go right through the center of those two sections that we're trying to get and you'll see we've got the needle come right here, and then you can just push the needle back through. That is how you can get those if you're having a hard time getting your needle in there, just stick it through the center, open that section and pull it through like I just did. Then that caught there we go. And you're looking to have a tight even stitches here, but you don't want them so tight that you permanently pull the book where it wants to pull open. So you do want there to be a little tiny bit of give. As you're sewing, it doesn't have to be so tight that then your book doesn't close. And so, you know, once you sew one or two books, you'll kind of get a feel for Oh, that was too tight or what have you. Trying to grab in the center here because I'm going to go right here and pull that through from that right there. But yeah, if they're too tight, your book won't close. The goal isn't to make them super tight. It's to make them firm and hold the book together, and I just sewed through that thread again. But the goal is to not make it so tight that your book won't close, and that's just going to be a little bit of experience after sewing one and you figuring out, Oh, that was too loose or oh that was too tight or oh, I did that just right. I just going to take some practice to kind of get that feel. 'cause I know people are thinking, Well, what is too tight? Well, sometimes you're just gonna have to sew one and be like, Okay, I got it. And then too, you might be thinking, does it matter if I go in my loops this way or if I go in my loops that way? No, you're just making a loop. Not a big deal if you are going from the right or to the left in making that loop. Alright, so we're to the last one where we want to make our cover. So I'm going to sew that loop through there. And now I've got my cover. And just like on the back side, we came to the outside of the cover and got that loop. So I'm gonna go to the outside of the cover here. And then I'm going to come back in on the side that is not the open end, just to give myself a little loop de loop here. Then that gives me a nice tight loop here at the end, and then I go back into that hole that we came out of in that fourth signature. I'm going to go right back in here and you're going to have a double line here, which is why I like a single thread of the thicker wax thread so that double line isn't super obvious and looking weird. I come right back out that hole. I go right back into the book cover. Then I'm going to bring this over to the right side of that piece of thread and loop it underneath it. So just go ahead and make your loop. Pull it tight or tighter. I can see now I've got this loose here right here. If you've got one that's loose and it didn't pull tight for you, you can go back and pull that one a little tighter. So as you're moving down the line, you're pulling those where they're more even. Pull it as you go. Don't wait until you get to the end to say, Oh, I didn't get that tight enough on that one because that'll happen. Because we're doing the little double loops around it to give it a finished edge, it's harder the further you get. If you've got one that's super loose, pull those a little bit before you get to the end. We've got this one looped. Let's go back in here. Which one did I just go in. There we go. Here we go. Come back through that third hole and do that again. Through the top of the book. And then I'm coming right into the side of that right there. And then we'll just loop it right around it so we can pull it taunt, go back into the third hole and continue down the line. All right. Now we're to the very last one. What you're going to do is loop it around and back into that last hole again. You'll notice at this time, if you did your threading of the needle like I did, you've got to the end with very little waste. You didn't have to cut and add more yarn more thread to your thing. I'm basically going to loop it underneath that center and then pull this through the loop, and that is going to make my knot and so loop it through. And then go through that loop and then pull it. I always double knot personally and it's wax thread, so that'll keep that for us. That is our finish. Now we have our book. You can do this a little bit and really get it lined up. We've got all of our stitches. We didn't miss any thread there and we are ready to see our book and use our book. We'll have these little sections here that are open because we have an open spine. Now, if you're using thinner paper, the gap here between your pieces will be a smaller gap because we are using such thick paper, you can't really make that gap any smaller because if you did, then the book wouldn't close because that is the minimum amount of space that that that loop needed for your book to close there when you were done. And there we go. Now we have our first book made. How cool is that? Oh, my goodness. I can't wait to see yours. So I'm gonna make one more with a bunch of extra papers included in there. So let's go take a look at that project. 6. Bare Mixed Paper Book: All right, so I went ahead and punched all my holes in my signatures the same exact way that I did before. I just flipped them inside out. I measured them, I marked lines, I flipped them, and I folded them inside out, and I punched the holes. And then I've got each one marked one, two, three, four, so I can keep them in the same order. The thing about these that makes it a little more challenging is if you've got pieces in here that are not full width, you want to make sure that they are aligned exactly where you wanted them before you punched your holes. You don't want to tap everything down and have everything here at the end and then flip through your page and these be in the wrong position. That is the most challenging part of using different papers in different sizes. Then I made myself a punch card. I just used a piece of watercolor paper. This one, cut off an edge and made myself some punch holes so that I could then easily mark where I want the holes on the book plates that I've already glued together with the papers. And now I can just take this and go all the way through the whole thing exactly where I want it. And to keep it from moving around, we could take a bull clip and just clip it in place, and now we are ready to punch all the way through. Making a template is a little bit easier, which I'll admit, was. Then go ahead and just measure it out and punch holes in the piece of paper. And now you have a little template. And if you're making all your books the same size and you're making multiple books. Now you have a book thing, ready to go and this is the front. I'm just going to flip it over because it's the front side and it'll actually be facing this way, whereas this will be facing the back will be facing that way. If I flip it over, it should be, it should be the same either way. But I read one somewhere, flip it around because it's the other side. I just do that out of habit more than really knowing if it's going to make any difference. If you forget to do that, don't even worry. But it does give me the same distance because there's two different distances here. So it does make sure that I'm using the same distance on this. I hope. Oh, you know what I probably read? I flipped I probably read. That's what I probably read. Here we go. Okay. Got the last one. I might have said that wrong, but what I meant was if that's the front, flip it this way so that you have the same amount of space here and here because it's two different spaces if I didn't flip that over like that. That's what I meant. I said that backwards. Now we've got a front and we've got a bike, we're going to call that the back. We're going to call this the front and we've got our four sections when we're all done, that's what we'll have together. We're going to start with the bike just like we did on the other one and we're going to thread our needle and we are going to sew our book together. And I'm kind of thinking, what do you think about that? Oh, that's kind of no, I don't think I like that. I said, That's kind of crazy. But in my mind, kind of thinking a red. Or we could do a brown. Brown's kind of fun. I thought I had a red red, though. There we go. Hiding in the book boox. Do we want red? I think I want the red. I like red. I'm going to grab my needle and thread that I'm going to read. I'm going to pull. I got five, one, two, three, four, five, six elements. I'm going to pull myself about eight links or 7.5 to eight links of this thread so that I've got enough thread for the whole book without splicing it together or tying it off and starting again. H. All right. And then a double knot here on the end to get it started. Well, that double knot in a different spot. I don't want it in a different spot. Let me just get it in the same spot. That's why we have extra length anyway. So let's be more careful about pulling that tight. I mean, you could try to pull those out, but what a pain. All right. And we're going to start from the back just like we did with the other one. And now I've got so many different pieces of paper in here that I'm just hoping that we get it all coming back out the same way I intended. All right, so through the inside, got her knot right there, and then we're going to sew our cover so we're going to loop it on the back, and there we go. Got this coming out the right side of that, and then I'm just going to loop this around so that I've got the first started with a loop. And there we go. And then back on the inside and up coming back through the second hole until we've got the cover attached. Yeah. And then back through that loop, just kind of pull it back around so that we tie that first one off. Then again, right back through it until we've got the cover attached. Man, I did a good job getting those holes in the right place. You'll pat yourself on the back the more of these you do, and you're like, Oh, got it where I intended. Good job. There we go. And I'm just going to push that back in right there and then loop that around from the other side just like that. There we go. And then back in that loop. I don't want to be on the right side. I just want to be consistent. So I always come up with the thread on the right side. So I just looped it back under to get it on the right side, and then loop under that to make our loop. Alright. I got the last one there, and now I'm just going to loop around and kind of pull it taut. And now I'm going to start attaching the other signatures in. And I've got that one nice and tight, and then we'll just go from that first end And you may have to when you got this many papers in there, you might consider clipping the papers so that they don't move all over the place. That might be an option to at least keep them where you want them. If you've got multiple kinds of paper like I do, um, you just kind of do the best you can. It's not doesn't have to be perfect. Don't worry about if you've got a mistake or something that's off. Just do the best you can. And then come back through, and we're just looping these through the loop that we had to get that attached to that one there. And then back through the hole, and we're gonna continue to do that all the way down. Okay, so before when you get to this last loop here, I just almost stuck it back in. We don't want to do that. We want to attach the next section. Let's see if I can keep that in place. And these might move around, you know, as you get everything going, so you may have to get it lined back up with your original punch holes again. So you might just work your way through the stack to see, like, where is that hole if you've got as many papers as I've got to get them correctly. Back in the correct lineup here. Hang on. There we go. Now we're back in the correct lineup, but I do have a short piece in here that I think I have moved around. I've jostled around. So I just need to make sure I've got that one back down where the holes are. There we go. You just to take your time on these that have multiple different types of paper and different stacks here because they might move around on you and you just might have to realign them if you've been jostling them and not not keeping them perfectly in the same spot. So once we get back to that, we're going back through the second hole there, not the first loop, but the second loop. We're attaching this one to the one that we just did. And then there we go. So I'm gonna continue all the way down on this one doing that. So once we get to that one, make your loop. And then we'll grab our last section, which I feel like it's moved a little bit. There we go. Now we've got the fourth one attaching. And on some of these, if you just have to force it through and it makes a slightly different hole, it is what it is. Don't beat yourself up. Not a big deal. It's your art book. It will be fine. And I could go through. I just I don't want to. I guess we're going to. Alright, we're gonna find the inside of this one. Pull it through one side and push it back through to get our loop. There we go. And then in side to go to the next one. Right in the middle of the thread on that one. So if you pull the thread a little bit to the side, you're less likely to go through the center of it because, again, we want to be able to pull those tighter as we're going. So if you'll do that as you're going, you'll be less likely to have a loose spot that's weird. That one went through rather nicely. That's another thing you can do to use your all to kind of keep it from going underneath the next thread. If you don't want to keep opening and closing the book, trying to find the middle. Always looking for, like, how can I make it a tiny bit easier on myself without as much opening and closing and doing all the extra dts always back and forth and what? Last one. Ha ha. Alright, now we are ready to attach that go through that loop, and we are ready to attach the cover. So we're going to again, just like we did the back, go over the top and do the book, and then come back down. And again, I'm kind of coming over to the right of that thread, and then I'm going to loop under that and make that loop there, tighten it up. Then we're going to go back into the loop that we were just in right here and then back out the next loop. And through the loop on the cover Loop hole. I think and loop the hole through the hole on the cover, and then back through on the left side on the right side of that, and then just come through and make a loop with that. And then we're ready to go back in there. Come out the next hole and do that again. That last little loop there really does make a difference to your finished book. So I did one where I forgot to do that each time and then noticed, oh, I've forgotten that little extra loop there. It makes a difference in holding that cover to the book and it being a little bit less all over the place because these books are a little bit loose feeling compared to one that's got a full spine. B Okay. Once we get the last one, they're ready to do a double knot. So loop it under that loop and then back through the loop, pull it towards the end, and I do a double knot there. And there we go. There we go. Oh, my gosh. Look how exciting that one is. So now we've got a finished book with a red spine, and sometimes, too, if they're still kind of thick, I might set some heavy books on top of it to really flatten it down for a day or two. But for the most part, that's exactly what I wanted. Now we can open it and see our fun, flirty, playful inside, and all the different papers that I included. So let's just take a look at some of these papers. So this was the handmade paper making the cover. And I love that. You can decide at this point, is this the front? Or is this the front? I like this is the front because right now there's no up and down in mine. If you use some kind of writing or text and there's a definite direction to the writing in the text, then you need to decide before you get to this point, which is the front, which is the back. Until I start painting in here, I can probably change my mind. But here we've got pretty paper inside. Nice and playful. Got a piece of vintage paper. Now, if I decide to paint on this, I will put clear go on the top of this paper. Then paint on top of that. I'd use the liquitex clear gesso on any of the old papers like this because they're very delicate and the paper may soak through and do what you don't expect it to do. So if you'll just gesso it, it's ready to paint on. Now, I probably won't paint on that, but I certainly could add some paint touches or something or maybe a little pattern or stencil or flour on top. So if you're going to do any of that, the clear gesso will help you out there. Then I've got some watercolor paper and the reason I chose to put my favorite watercolor paper in here and I could have done one with decled edges if I used a bigger piece and tore the edges is that I can now paint this and I have a good surface to paint on and then it can then blend into the other surfaces. Then I put some fun papers in this one just because this is something you can slip something inside of this was just pretty. I like the butterflies and we could do some type of flower garden or something fun with a little tack in with that. It's just things to be creative. I liked this paper because it was very thin and tissue like. So that was fun. And then another tissue. That's the other side of that. And then the other side of that. Now, this one is the bottom of the bag, but I could cut the bag, and then that's another tuck in if I wanted. And then back to the paper. And then we get to the center parts where I've got the next paper. And then in this one, I put a fun paper in the middle and then a beautiful handmade paper kind of flanking it just for fun in different sizes. And then we get to the end of that one. I've got another old paper that I've centered because it's not the whole width of the book. Center those if you have something like that, and then I have an old paper and a piece of handmade paper in there. So I centered those and then a piece of wallpaper and a piece of textured paper. I like including different elements that are unexpected, and then they make you think uh, what could I do with that? You know, I like these things that give you a creative challenge. Here's a piece of handmade paper, another bag that I could cut and make tuck ins or just be creative and do some other stuff. Now, that one not completely centered, so I must have got it off a little bit and didn't realize, but I don't think it detracts from the piece, but I just wanted to point that out. Um, if you meant to have it centered, look, I've got one that wasn't centered. Not a big deal. And then a little tuck in here on this side if you wanted. Just include things that you think you would like to work with. Maybe you don't want to work with the same things I'm working with, but I just thought it'd be fun, and then there's the back of the book. And then, you know, when we look at the spine, we've got the yummy papers in there instead of just white paper there in the center. And so super fun. Hope you enjoyed creating a second book with different papers in it compared to the first book with just our watercolor paper in it, and then super fun variation on that. And I hope that got your creative juices kind of thinking like, Oh, what could I do? All right. I'll see you guys back in class. 7. Book Recap: We might do just a little wrap up of what we created in class today and kind of take a second look at just some different options that you might consider. So I have chosen all the books that I made, the two I made today, which were these two and the two I had already made previous to that just because I wanted some of these for myself, and then I thought, oh, I should just show you how to make these two and then you can have some lovely handmade sketchbooks and watercolor books to work in. I I want you to consider on these, using your own artwork as the cover. That's one option I have used on these handmade papers that I got from the art store because I love them and I've collected them. And when I was making the other books, I had a whole bunch of them that I had gone and shopped for and collected. I'm like, Oh, let's use some of these that are just hanging out in my studio. Waiting on their next project, and now I'm thrilled that I saved them for this project. I want you to consider getting fun and playful with your thread colors on the bindings. I also want you to consider. I've used a white watercolor paper, and that's the white showing. But I want you to consider after you make a regular one, making a more complicated one where you have other papers that flank the outside and maybe that you include inside your book so you have other things to work with. Um, you could use any papers that you want to create these. It could be mixed media paper, it could be watercolor paper, it could be paper that you tear. It could be all kinds of different papers and no watercolor paper. I could have had craft pages in here and fabric pages in here, and handmade papers and old papers and scrapbook papers. I mean, there's all kinds of things that you could consider including in each of your sections to make a book that truly is uniquely your piece of art. You could also consider attaching buttons or things like that that I've done in previous books where I've attached a piece of fabric. You could glue the fabric down and have a little belt loop closure or little button closure, and you could consider including a closure on these books. I did not include a closure on these books currently, but that doesn't mean I can't go back and add something to this, glue the ribbon to go all the way around and tie it off, or I could just have a long ribbon that I use as a tie off. Consider, do you want to closure? I could also have some decorative elastic and I could make one of the elastic bands to close it off. Consider that. Just throwing some ideas out there at you. I do like the playful edges that you get on these, which is why I wanted to make some of these for myself. I like reds and oranges and stuff like that, but you can see on all of these. I've got some different options there. That I've created. I hope you have fun with this technique. It's a little easier than the full on bound ones that we did in the other classes. You can get very creative. I like that these can open up and lay flat and I like that the edge is exposed. That's what really draws me to these. I hope you have fun creating some of these yourself. Consider too, another thing, you could create the front and the back cover to be completely different. They don't have to match, even though I've made them machi machi here on mine. You can have two different covers for the front and the back like we did in some of these other books that I've made in the other classes. So consider that also. You could have fabric on these, as well as pieces of art that you created. You could just cover it with a piece of watercolor paper. You could do anything that you could possibly imagine with these covers. So get creative. Can't wait to see what you end up making, and I'll see you guys back in class. 8. Final Thoughts: Congratulations on completing this class and creating your own coptic bound journal. I hope you enjoyed learning this beautiful bookbinding technique and discovering how to make unique journals that showcase your creativity. Remember, each journal you make is a one of a kind piece of art, and you can experiment with different materials and papers and designs to make each project uniquely yours. Whether you're using your journal for art, writing or as a special gift, I encourage you to keep exploring this craft and letting your imagination guide you. Don't forget to share your work in the class project gallery. I'd love to see what you created. Thank you for joining me in this workshop, and I hope you feel as inspired to get creating and making art in the things that bring you joy. Happy bookbinding, and I'll see you in the next class.