Coptic Bindings - A Beginner's Class

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to my studio today. My name is Hickok Otsuka. I've been binding books since I was a teenager more than 10 years ago. I founded Bushati Guys under the imprint Off Fatigue, a studio in Price. I've since made a lot off blank journals and books and books with content for God, all kinds of things. Today I'm going to show you how to make a thick drunk journal in just a few simple steps with materials. If you want to, you probably can find them in the house and use what you already have. It's going to look somewhat like this. This year's chunky ist Um, this is a beginner's class, and I won't assume any knowledge or previous experience with pulque finding this is a great place to start your adventure with by Name box. If you already have some experience with making books, this might still be a ghost refresher on the basics. And even if you know some Coptic binding, it might not be exactly this one. There. Hundreds of variants out there if you took Mike advanced class called Medieval Paper bag There we made a book that looked like this then you have seen this kind of finding already ? Of course, the covers are completely different and you might still be interested, but it could be a bit off. You could feel like you have already seen this, But enough talk. Let's get started, shall we? 2. Lesson 1 Jump Start into Making Your Book: Hello and welcome again. I am very glad he decided to join me for this course. So let's make a book together. The first thing to think about is what pages what paper you want to use to put on the inside pages of your book. So have a brief thing. Who is going to use your book and how are they going to use it? If you want to make it perfect, you will choose a different paper if its predominant, before writing with ink, then if it's for using dry media on, because these are kind of the polar opposites, Um, generally, if its foreign artists and they want to sketch in, you might want to choose artist great paper. Um, for me, it's always when I'm doing something for the very first time, and I'm trying a new technique for me. It's always important to use the material I don't feel precious about at all. So just using a cheap paper that you have lying around in the house is perfectly fine. You don't need anything special for this kind of structure. If you have any difficulty, is deciding on the paper use or you feel insecure You can, of course, always ask in the community section, and I answered your question as soon as I see it on. I also talk a bit about different papers in the next lesson, I'm going to make several books today from this colorful sugar paper. I'm making a book for my small son to draw in. In some demonstrations, you'll see me handling simple office paper because that's what everyone has at home. And for some things. I wanted to show you how office paper looks like and behaves. And for myself, I'm going to make a book from this artist grade Kraft paper, which is great for pastels. Sketching paper consists off a lot off plant fibers, and those are aligned predominantly in one direction. This is called the fiber direction off the paper. And remember that when we bind a book, the fiber direction always has to be parallel to the spine. And thus, before you begin determining the form it off your book and start cutting down papers, be sure you know the fiber direction off your paper. If you don't want to deal with this right now, I suggest you take office paper in a paper that is meant to be fed through a machine, for example, a printing machine. The fiber direction will always be parallel to the long side, so you will take these papers, cut them in half, and then you have a short grain paper and you can fold this to make an a four size book out often a four sized piece off office paper. 3. Lesson 2 THEORY. On Paper and Papergrain: in this lesson. I want to provide some background knowledge on paper what it is, how it's made and what paper grain is, how to determine it. It's for everyone who wants to use a different paper than office paper and doesn't know how to determine paper grain. You can skip this whole theory if you don't feel up to it, and you just want to go ahead with your project, maybe come back before you buy any paper you want to use for a future journal. I'm going to talk a bit also about what papers I have, what I could papers for the anti pages or the covers off your book, and I hope to provide some guidance there. The most important property off paper is its fiber or grain direction. Sometimes it can be a bit annoying if it doesn't work like we wanted to, but most of the time, if you understand what it is, it actually helps the process and to understand what it is and where it comes from. Let's take a look at the paper making process. Paper is made from a slurry that contains paper pulp, which itself consists off planned fibers mostly and then different chemicals, fillers and so on to make a specific paper from this slurry. Then the sheets are formed, and you might have seen this process for making paper with in the medieval way with a Dekel , which is kind of a CVE, where the papermaker collect some of the slurry and then shakes the sief to distributed as evenly s they can. And this is then transferred to be pressed and dried. Depending on how they shake, received more fibres will orient them Selves in one direction than in the other. But for handmade paper, the grayness usually not very noticeable in the industrial papermaker process, however, there is a long Seve like a transporter belt on which the slurry is transported at high speed, and this, just like Apu, stick in a river on this belt. Most of the plan fibers will orient themselves in the direction this belt is moving, and this gives a very pronounced paper grain. In an industrially produced paper. Like this office paper, you can feel the grain direction simply by handling it. If you fold will bend the paper without folding it, you'll notice that it puts a slight resistance to your hand. And in this direction, the resistance is much bigger than in this direction. The fibers are mostly oriented in this way, and, of course, it's easier to fold the paper if the fold falls kind of between most of the fibers rather than when it breaks most off the fibers. Sometimes, for whatever reason, it can be hard to tell even an industrial paper. Or maybe you have a paper that doesn't have a pronounced grain, and then you can wet it from just one side to determine paper brain. So cut a piece that isnot square and then wetted from one side, and the paper will curl up immediately. But as you can see, it doesn't do so in a chaotic way. It forms this tube and the direction that stays mostly the same in this one direction. This direction here stayed straight, and this is the fiber direction, whereas in this direction it has been crowding, and this is called cross grain. It's with the grain and cross grain. When binding books, we always want the spine to be parallel to the paper, brain or other way around the paper grain parallel to the spine because all of the properties we've just seen. So this was a long grain paper. That means the paper grain is parallel to the long side. If I bound from this a book like this. So the grain direction here is going like this. This would be called a book that's found cross grain. Every book inevitably gets into contact with paint with water. Um, people sometimes think they could avoid it by not using water based glues or something like that. But there's moisture in the air, and this moisture content varies. And while it does that this will, the paper will react and it will move in small ways. And we have seen that in a paper like this, it wants to crawl like this, right? So we have this paper. It's part of a large book that's hold together like this, and the paper wants to move like this and wants to stretch in this direction so it will tear on the binding. And in extreme cases, we can even tear the binding apart. But in most cases, it will would just crinkle up and build out folds pretty much like this. And then it's almost impossible to move, and some books can be rendered almost incredible like that. Whereas if we bind it with the grain. So if we have ah, paper book now that's found like this with the grain. Now that the moisture content in the air varies, the book will still work. But it now wants to curl like this, and this direction stays the same so it doesn't pull on the binding at all. That's perfectly fine. And even if a church build out crinkles like that, you can still open it very easily. No problem at all. I hope this waas enough to discourage you from binding global cross grain. There are a couple more properties off paper that due to how paper grain works and the effect it has, and all of these properties want us to buy in the book with the grain. But I think I'll stop here. And instead, let's take a look at what are good choices for different papers for your book. For many people, just collecting paper is a hobby of his own, browsing the shops, finding a new decorated paper or just paper with different properties there so much out there to discover, but that can also make It may be a bit intimidating and awful, because after Jews, let me show you some of my papers and tell you what choices I usually take. Those papers on top here, look Mostly boring there. Papers I used for the inside pages off my book. Talk about them a little later. I want to show you this, um, drawer now. So these here are mostly hand decorated papers I made. I collect. Try to collect interesting gift wrapping paper. What? I get someone. Thanks. My birthday, By the way, you got what I wanted to show you, as this is my pile off head made and 18 papers, many Asian papers, especially thin, so these wouldn't be suited for our book, However. So this luxury papers, which are great, they're come in such a vibrant colorists. And they also they would be a bit too flimsy for your covers here. I'm looking for something else. What? I wanted to show you this. This paper, if you want to treat yourself, try its four letter paper, they come in Many Congress and there Quite firm. They're grateful covers like this. I can we try to tear it, but they're very, very tear resistant on. They will do great discovers and they come in many colors. Well, maybe it's best to choose your inside pages first and then see what goes well with your inside pages or a blank journal. I think it's important to find a paper that suitable for a variety off Penn's off course. There are many highly specialized papers out there, which might be suitable for a specific project, but in general, try to find something that's all around. Good. Um, this year this is a watercolor paper that I like. It's fairly cheap for a watercolor paper graph. Paper can be really great because the total paper is nice for using past ALS and so on. What I found really surprising when I first discovered it. ISS cotton rag, paper it if you'd so different from the wood paper you usually see, and I could hardly believe how nice it is to write on it because it fuels my cotton. This is that I thought, under the name off drawing paper. It's a bit rough. It is very similar to when you buy a block off drawing paper for your kids. This is what I bought as a sketching paper is the This is cream colored, and this has to be cream colored because it's a bit thinner, so this makes it a bit more or paid the yellow color you might come across. One is called a book paper. It's just it's a printing paper that is a bit thicker for its way to than other paper. And, um, it's fairly opaque so that you can print on both sides. It can still make a very good paper for blank journals, but it's not like this would be the generic choice. When choosing materials for your books, start with paper for the inside pages and find the paper that you think it's beautiful, maybe even excites you, and then start trying it out with different pens, pencils. And if all of them works, it's perfect. Once you've decided on a paper, start working with it, cut for signatures, see what the paper grain is and what kind off for murder and sizes you can make with this paper. And, um, if you still like his form a few signatures and once you have a couple of signatures, it's the time to decide on what kind of cover you want when choosing material for the cover . A lot of different considerations have to be taking into account. Do you want to take paper or card stock at all? Maybe you want to do something more surprising. Just remember that for this technique, you have to be able to fold it. In my experience, cod stock works really well. Other terrorist system papers like the letter paper I showed you like a recycled paper bag , are also very good choices. You'll get a good feeling for it when you're holding the cover material on top off a couple of folded signatures and bended a little and just test whether it it's something that he would want for a cover, and if it feels rise, you will be good. 4. Lesson 3 How to Cut Paper: unless your papers already the perfect size, you now have to cut it down. Let me show you how to fold and cut paper consistently for this step. You obviously need your chosen paper. And I'm using a paper knife which I bought at a bookbinding supplier. You can use any not too sharp knife. A letter opener is perfect. Really? To cut your paper stand in front of a table that's about hip height, you'll need the edge of the table. I'm simulating this year with the sports I put down Onda Um, yeah, First bring together the points off one edge. I'm doing the upper left because I'm right handed. I enforce the fold with a bone folder. The knife is inserted so that it's lying flat on the table and at an angle in the paper. And then I pull the knife toward me so that my hand is moving in this direction. This and in this manner, you get a need caught here. If you're left handed, I'm not. So this will look a bit awkward. You're doing this. Just mirror symmetric first enforced the fold here and then go over to there. This hand helps to keep the paper flat knife flashed on the table and then in this direction from these cut pieces off paper, we now want to build our signatures. The signatures a stack off sheets of paper folded in half. How many sheets of paper you put into. One signature can vary from book to book and depends on personal preference and, most importantly on the paper you use. Just go with as many sheets per signature as feels right for the paper you're using as a rule of thumb. If you're using something that resembles card stock, for example, watercolor paper just one sheet or two sheets per signature is probably right for other kinds of artists. Paper like sketching or drawing paper. Try about six sheets per signature. If you're using office paper, which is especially dense, make it a cheats per signature or maybe even 10 5. Lesson 4 Forming Signatures Method 1: it's finally time to get started on cutting the pages for the book we're going to make. I'm going to show you two different methods of cutting paper and building signatures for both. You need a paper knife to cut the paper, and for this first method, the use of a bone folder is optional. You will see me use it here, but if you don't have one, just skipped the step. Cutting paper to size is one of those repetitive pieces off work for a bookbinder that can really loosen up your mind. And I can guess in a almost meditative state of mind where my hands are moving automatically and my mind it's really free and creative. This only works because I've established a fixed routine and my hands really know by without me thinking about it, what they're doing. Probably everyone who's doing this regularly works that way. But the routine, people said in tow, differs from person to person, and the most remarkable difference between different bookbinders is that there are some who caused all their sheets of paper first and then start folding and building signatures, whereas I'm living signatures as I go right once I have eight sheets of paper. I put them together as a pile. I jog here to align, especially the top off what's going to be the top of the signature. And this is of course, going to be the top or head of the book then and then I fold them all at the same time, making sure that the creep looks symmetrical when you have sheets of paper that all have the same former and you fold them like this. The outermost cheats will have the largest way to curve around the others, and so those in the middle would will kind of stand out from the rest. And this overhang is called the creep when you're happy with the fold of your signature, enforced the cold first with fleshy part of your finger. And then if you do have a bone folder and forced the fold from both sides. If you don't have a bone folder, just skip this death, and then you have to keep unfolding signatures until you have enough for your book. For this type of finding, you need at least six signatures for the chain to show on the spine ages a bit better. I think I'm going to make 12 signatures for this book, so it's going to be quite chunky at this page. Former remember before holding a signature, the Steck ISS jobbed. And I said, This is the side that will become the top off the book. And of course, you have to keep track where the tops off your signatures are. Therefore, I am always putting the top on the same kind of edge. So the second signature used dressed, saw me putting on the stack, the spine iss going in the other direction. But the tops are both facing me. And like this, I will work through all signatures. As I said, monotonous pieces off work like folding paper can be quite pleasurable if you settle into a fixed routine that you feel comfortable with. But this is quite personal, and so I want to show you a different way of doing it and offer you a different option. So try out what works better for you 6. Lesson 5 Forming Signatures Method 2: This is now a second method to do the same job, choose whatever resonates better with you. The main advantage of the second method is that it's overall quicker. I prefer the first method because I just like the way off building signatures better for this method. First of all, old pages are criticized. The cutting and folding as such of course, follows completely the same pattern as before. When all of your pages are cut to size, pulled each of them individually in half. And once you're through the whole stack, you have a big pile actually folded sheets of paper. Drop that pile on. Meeting it up s good as you can. And then we're going to use the same effect that gave us the creep in a signature to stagger this. You can see here how how these are all staggered and that makes it easy to flip through them. The next step now is to reinforce this old from both sides with a bone folder. And this split rumor is the quickest way to do that. I'm not very practiced at doing it like this because and I said, I'm using this other method. But if you get a bit off to 18. I've seen people getting really, really forcing these polls. If the pile of folios is too big to be held comfortably in one hand, he can split the pile into two or even more pieces and go through them individually. You need to do this from both sides. So when you're done with enforcing the fold for one side's, turn around your stack and stagger it again and go over each cold again from the other side with a bone folder. Once you've done that meeting up your pile, you can enforce the bulls once more from top and bottom and you're done. The final step now is to actually build the signatures out off the individually folded sheets of paper. Currently, we just have each paper individually folded and the signature is, ah, collection off several pages inside each other, as we've seen before, about six or eight will probably be right for you. Um, I split up my pile here because I wanted multiple signatures, and I first thought four would be a good number. But feeling the signature, it felt a bit too thin, and I decided to make it six. After all, this view is good. And then I just have to keep going until I have enough signatures for my book ready to add covers to this. 7. Lesson 6 Adding Covers: Now that we finished folding our signatures, we know exactly what form in our book is going to have. And now it's the time Teoh think about and make our covers for the covers. You need a material that you can fold, but it should be heavier, sturdier and, um, feel more rigid than the inside pages of your book. Otherwise it will let Discovery feeling. Let me show you what I chose for my books. So I decided to use fairly simple paper for my covers This paper ISS very inexpensive and rough. And so I thought this would be a good match. It's a fairly thick paper about just a recycle grave. Remember that We need to determine paper. Grain s also for the cover. The grain will have to be parallel to the spine and this year is fairly obvious. Glenn is going like this. Okay. This year is less obvious on using reliable wetting methods and brains going like this. So I have to see but still. And I'm going to use this to put on some decorations on the front cover you covers don't necessarily have to be made out of paper. If it fits your book fabric, especially a starched or paperback fabric, something that's a bit stiff leather, maybe even plastic or rubber. I can imagine a lot of things that might work. And I'm looking forward to seeing your creative ideas in the project section to make covers out of this paper. I want to cut a strip that is the same height as our signature with the grain direction going that in the direction of the spine parallel to the spine. And it should be at least as wide as an open folio. To do this, I first take a direct measurement from the signature and then using the growth on my paper , I make perpendicular cuts. I do this twice so that I have two covers which I now fold in half. If you have any markings on your cover, make sure this markings go to the inside and then you can check that they fit your book. This overhang here is intentional. We're going to cut this later and they should have the same height as your signatures. You will remember that I used to different methods to fold my signatures. This one here I made with method to where I reinforced every fold with the bone folder. This is ready to go, and I'm going to start sewing right away. This one here I made with Method one. And this now has to go under a weight for a couple of hours if you use the bone folder and at least a day if you didn't. 8. Lesson 7 The Punching Template: or these following steps. We're going to need our prepared signatures and covers a piece of scrap paper that's longer than the height off our signatures. Something to punch holes with, uh, pencil to mark our paid paper. And when we start punching, you need something to protect your table. And for this you can use a variety of things I really just like to use most pad. If you have a thick felt, this would be even better. You can use a folded up towel, or you could just need use a piece of cardboard. I'm also going to use a pair of scissors, and that's it. Now that all components for our book ready, folded and prepared, you're probably as eager as I am to get going with sewing and finishing this book. However, before we do something to these pages that we can't undo, let's take another look at the structure off the book we're going to make and let's think about what we're doing. These lines off chains, that is whether sewing is going to sit. The position on the paper where this is happening is called a sewing station for your book to look nice and also to enhance the structural integrity. It's important that the holes in the paper are put very precisely. Otherwise, you'll have signatures of paper poking up from the book block. We are making a simple punching template out of a piece of scrap paper to ensure we can put our holes into position. Precisely. This piece of scrap paper has to be wider than the height off your signatures, pulled it in half and then mark on the fold the height off your signature. I am admittedly a bit paranoid about accidentally flipping over my punching template because this can really mess up the position of the holes and therefore are marked the top . And then I clip off the end at an angle so that I don't even think off jogging that end. So what you have written on it should become the inside. And now, without fearing anything, we can plan our sewing stations and mark them out. And if you have to start over, just take another piece of scrap paper. We start with the two outermost sewing stations. This is where the cattle stitches going to sit. This needs to be fairly close to the books edges for good stability For this project, let's put it a centimeter or khalfan inch from the top and bottom off your book measure and mark this on your punching template. And then it's time to think about how many sewing stations we want for our book and where to put them. The placement off sewing stations off course has structural meaning. If you put too few, the strain on these few holes will be too big, and the threat will tear through the paper while you're using the book. On the other hand, if you put too many holes to close together, this creates a perforated line also pro prone to tearing. As a general rule of thumb. Think about spacing your sewing stations 2 to 5 centimeters apart from each other. That's about one or 22 inches for a book like this, where the binding will be visible. In addition, aesthetic aspects have to be considered. Sometimes it's nice to group them in twos or in threes, but let's start simple and space them evenly. For this first book off course. I don't know how big or small your making a book, but start considering four sewing stations in addition to your to cattle and see how far apart they fall. If you're happy, mark the position on your template and then get ready for pre punching holes. 9. Lesson 8 Pre-Punching Holes: Tiu, start pre punching holes. First, put down something to protect your table and then insert your punching tempted into your first signature. Jock it at the head of the book at the top and take your time to ally in the template properly before you punch through at all mark positions. To do this, you have to make sure you really punch perpendicular down in the middle of the section. This is easiest if you pinch the sides together and hold it as closely as you can. If I did this year, you just couldn't see anything. Um, yeah, I also do this with the covers. Maybe I should have done that at the very beginning. I just forgot. You can see here. You don't have to punch all the way. You want your holes to be a smallest possible. So I just barely punched the paper here and then put your finished signatures at the top off your workplace already align them like they will sit in the book so the tops are all at the same at the same side again. Take time to align the template properly in the signature. There's no need to be Hasting hasty now here and then what I like to do is to trail the needle in the gutter here because that means you can really feel where the whole sits rather than just see the line. Yeah, And now you do this with all signatures for your book. 10. Lesson 9 The Actual Sewing: Finally, it really is time to start sowing. My other work is still resting underweight, but this one is ready to go, obviously, for sewing, you'll need a friend and needle for the threat I'm using here. A four ply wax lit and threat by Crawford. Um, if you're choosing a different threat, just make sure you can't grip it with your fingers, even if you try really hard. And even if your fingers hurt, the threat isn't break. This makes it suitable for bookbinding. You wanted also to be thick enough so that the chains on the spider will show up nicely. I compiled a whole lesson on threat, which I put in the next video your need a little more than the full length off each each signature. And unless you're making a very small or thin book, you won't be able to do it in one go. You'll have to attach threat. So take one end in one hand, one end in one hand and then go as far as you can. And this is where you clip your threat and you'll just have to attach another piece. I'll show you how to do that for a sewing needle. I like to use blood needles, but you can really use anything that will hold your thread. Um, try to get the finest needle that will still hold you threats so that you don't make the holes in the paper bigger than they have to be on the blood needle makes it easier because you don't accidentally punch the paper where there's no hole, and then you thread your needle and off we go. Finally, we're really ready to start sewing. You need your threaded needle more threat. If you have a bone folder, do keep it ready. And, of course, we need our specked with signatures with the pre punched holes in them. The very first step is to prepare your work area. The threat is handy at the side. The bone folder ready at the side. We have our needle threaded and now is the time to check for a last time that your book block is in the right order and so you can see this edge here looks Tidier. This is my to the edge where I dropped all the signatures and they align nicely year. They're a bit uneven for your book. You want to be as flat as possible on the top, because that's where the gust dust gatherers and, um, check that no signature is flipped. I'll show you how a flipped signature would look like. So imagine this was flipped, although we tried to, um, space the signatures evenly. You can see that ever so slightly this year sits a bitch did lower, and this would make the signature stand out in the end. So currently hard to tell top front cover and we start sowing at the back cover. This is so I put down the stack like this, and then the first signature close to the edge of the table. Sowing the first couple of signatures is a bit weird and different from the rest. Once you've established a rhythm, it would be really easy. But take good care in this first few steps, so we have our cover lying on the table, and I come out here at the top cattle, the topics currently facing the left. But you could do this on the other side. It doesn't really matter, and I pull the threat through until there's a small tail hanging from the other side of the signature from the cover in this case. And then I put on my first signature. See that I flipped it there. That's because the tops are on the left on top and they're coming on to the right on the table. And now I'm entering the first signature just above the hole where just came out from the outside to the inside. Make sure you hit really the middle of the signature. Pull the threat through just a bit and then come out at the next hole. Make sure you're pulling the thread in the right direction so that you don't tear the whole . So the threat inside the signature is going from left to right. So I'm pulling slightly toward the right and not to the left. The threat should be all snuck inside there. No loops, but it also shouldn't be taught. And then I go to the inside of the folded cover through the whole just below where I just came out, and you can see the thread there and make sure you don't, Pierre said. And you pull the threat completely through, and then our through the same hole. But with looping around the threat that's lying there again. Make sure everything is snug. Take your time with this. You can check several times. You'll see me going through the motions several times. And when you are happy with how everything is lying there on is aligned. Yeah, this was so once everything's in place. I go back into the signature through the same hole, and now everything's the same for the rest of the sewing station. So I'm going to speed up the video a little. Um, just remember to pull in the right direction and get everything snark. Maybe you don't need to see this. For every sewing station, you just do the same at every every single one until you reach the last one. Now, when you reach the last sewing station, the second cattle first you do the same as before. Out of the last hole. Pull the thread tight, enter the cover. But then instead, off wrapping around the threat we want to not tum on. I'm going to give you a better view of this pass so past the needle under the threat and pull this old tight. And then I tie a simple double, not and then out through the last hole and pulled out your threat tight. And then, if you do have a bone folder, you can use it to push down the signature again and consolidated to bid with a threat in the middle. Then put on the next signature, observed the flip here that's necessary so that the top is still facing to the left and with your needle, you enter at the cattle just above the hole where you made your cattle stitch last time into the middle and then out through the next hole. I know that the threat in the signature is now running from right to left toe. Always pull your threat towards the left so that it doesn't tear the paper, and now we do what is called a drop forward. So the threat is running from right to left, and we now enter with a needle between the cover and the first signature left off the spanning three right here. And then we wind the threat around this spending cried between the signatures. Maybe it's easier for the first time if you pull the thread through right away, but he won't do this with in every step. Make sure everything, said Snuck, and then you re enter the signature through the same hole for which you have come in. A common mistake is to pull too tightly here. You want to make sure that the signatures are really sitting on top off each other and you don't pull the operas, signatures, four words toward the spine. Too much. And now you just repeat this until you reach the cattle again. So we come out of the next hole, then we drop forward again when the thread pull tied. Now we're at the last signature. We wind the threat, pull tied back into the same hole and out at the cattle. So this this step and I was really important to do the catalyst. It right is really important for their structural integrity of your book. Before we do that, check that all your threat ISS lying snugly reinforced the fold with a bone folder if you have one, and then this time we fall back at the cattle. The needle comes out at the top off the book here and wind, then the threat around the needle and center the threat on the spine and pull straight up This is your first cattle stitch. So you have a little not sitting there and then put on the next signature and all the same again. Now just going in the other direction, in the cattle, out at the next sewing station. Now again, we drop forward. Now the threat is going from left to right. So we're going right off the spanning thread between the first and the second signature. Pull tight and enter the same hole again where you just came out again. Dropped forward means right off that spanning threat. It's the same for all sewing stations. Now I want to show you a typical problem that happened. So when you enter the signature, I don't usually pull the threat through fully just a bit. And then I get out off the signature again. If you have too much threat there, it tends to catch on the edges of the paper, and you have to make sure you realize that right away, otherwise you're binding will be loose and signatures might fall out. Now we do our cattle stitch again. Now the threat is going from left to right. So again we fall back and enter left off the bending thread and the needle comes out at the tail of the book. We wind the thread and then pull up straight, straight to the top. Yes, you little not From now on, the patron stays the same for all signatures. So I put on the next signature. We enter at the tail of the book, in and out the next sewing station than full. The threat tied. It's going from right to left now here. So also pull slightly to the left and dropping forward means I'm entering left off the spending threat between the second and third signature now and then double back on myself. Pull tight, said everything straight and into the same hole again. And essentially every. Repeat that until we reached the front cover. The my thread is already getting a bit short year, so I'm going to attach new threat soon. Getting the catalyst it right. It's really important. So I'm showing this slowly here once more because the not off the cata locks the sewing off the last signature. Before I do it, I check one more time that everything's right. The thread doesn't for many loops. Inside the signature. I used the bone photo once more. And then the Katniss Stitches performed. After entering the new signature at the first sewing station behind the kettle, I decided to attach a new piece of threat. The first thing to do is change the needle to the new threat and then deal with the two ends, which need to be attached to each other. Unfortunately, in the video, you could just see the back off my hand. So I filled myself again while doing my second book of two methods of doing this. My favorite method is in the end of the new threat, you make a simple slip knot, and then you can and you enter the end of the old threat into the loop and you can center, then the slipknot between the two sewing stations, and then you pull tight until you feel they're not flip and even more secure, way off. Attaching the two ends is to perform a weaver's. Not for this. You loop the old threat under itself such that the top off the loop is positioned between this and the next sewing station. And then, with the end of the new threat, you enter this loop from the top under the leg. Then you turn this end around to enter the loop again, go coming from the top and entering entering from the top and coming out here under the threat. So one end is going over. The other is going under just past the video. And take a good look while you're trying to do it. And once everything's pulled height, this is a really secure not and you can clip the ends very close to the not and then just continue sewing as if you were using the same threat all along. I speed things up again here a little, Um, the only thing to remember really is toe always drop forward. I saw in some forums people say it doesn't matter as long as you're consistent. That's not true. If you're doing a chain stage like this one, I'm showing you here. Always drop forward and wind. If you want to drop backwards, you need to lock before you climb, just like we do at the cattle stage. But I'm going to show you this in a different class here. We always drop forward. I'm going to slow down for the cattle once again so that you can see the cattle stitch more slowly. This is really important to get it right, and there's the next signature. The blue signature is my last one. After that, I only have the cover to attach. Once again, we go through the usual routine after the last cattle. The cover comes on just like another signature. Nothing changes in the sewing procedure, however, because you now don't have a stack off papers. Just a single folio. You have to be extra careful not to rip the paper while you're working, but that's the only difference. Really. You're now performing the very last cattle stitch for this book, so be extra careful with this one, but it works just the same. It's just another kettle stitch, and then there's knows, new signature to put on an enter. Instead, you go back into the folded cover, and now we just need to secure the end of this thread. Make sure you really have pulled it through properly and then use your last, um, your last sewing station there as some kind of anchor to just make a proper Not there. I like to put into just for good measure and then clip the threat and that's it. We're done binding our book. Yea, 11. Lesson 10 THEORY Thread: think about investing some money in the supplies and materials to use for your book binding than think about buying some threat because this really makes a difference. If you look for bookbinding threat, it will usually be this non diet natural colored variety. Sometimes they're also black, and they come in many different sizes, which was usually given by a single number like this is a 25 years of 20. There's another 25. Unfortunately, these numbers very from manufacturer to manufacturer, and they will mean different things. However, you can rely on most of the time at least, that the higher the number, the thin of the threat. And for a binding like the one I showed, you hear anything Number 18 or a lower number like 14 or here's a 12 would be good. If you want to use a color threat, then you'll have to look somewhere else. Most of the time, the linen colored linen threats you get will be advertised for or made for leather sewing. The threat I used here is sometimes sold as bookbinding threat. This year is Crawford's four ply waxed linen thread. It comes in many colors that makes it's beautiful, and it's undoubtedly the easiest threat to work with. So especially if this is the first time you are binding ill, full heartedly recommend using a Wexler in and thread like this. The industrial standard, Fulin and Thread is any l I mentioned before that I used to four ply threat. More specifically, I used in N e l 18 slash four threat. Let me explain this funny number. So let's first of all, look at how such a thread is made. You start with plant fibers, which are twisted into a yarn in the picture. Here you see the young with an s twist, by the way, but that's not really important now. Then you take a number off strands, for example three and twist those three into a three ply. Or you would take four to twist them into a four ply Fife into a five play and so on. If you start out with a young with an s twist, by the way, then you apply needs to have Azad twist Um, and that's why when you buy a French linen thread, the ply it's usually colder. The tour, the standard numbering system used full in and threat is any L, which means number English linen, And there are other numbering systems, but they play a less important role. The 18 before the slash denotes the thickness off the young from which this threat was made . Intuitively, you might want to measure the thickness of a threat by Dia Meter, but that's hard because for the same piece of thread, the Dia meter changes. For example, when you pull at the threads and it can be compressed, and it might not be the same over the whole length off Fred. Therefore, the thickness off red is measured by how long the yard is that you made from the same amount of plant material. For an eight number 18 yarn, for example, the spinner started off with £11 off fiber and ended up with 18 standard Hanks off 300 yards each. If they had ended up words with, let's say 25 hangs. Obviously the young would be thinner, and if they ended up with, let's say 12 it would be thicker. And that's why the honest, thicker, the smaller the number is. The number behind the slash is just the number off strands that go into the plie. As I have explained before, the one we used here was a four ply. They also produce other thicknesses. Um, the label looks like this. This is a three ply. And if you compare this with this thickness, you can see that they're off different thickness with another thread. The last pronounced this chain on your spine will be. And because that's the characteristic future off this binding, I would recommend using a four ply threat. Um, because it's heavily waxed. If you kind of make loops in this threat, they hold very nicely. And also this linen threat consists off several strands. Thes are three Lisa four. This is what three ply and four ply means, and these are twisted, so they're wound. And while you're pulling this through a hole on one side, off the whole, you're increasing the twist, and on the other hand, you're reducing it, and this leads to the threat building up kings. However, this wax on the outer surface off the threat reduces this action significantly, which is what makes using this thread so much easier. This year, for example, is long, probably which is a very famous leather working threat and very beautiful. It also comes at different thicknesses. This is cold thickness 332 which is not an industrial standard, but it's the thickest threat, and this would be a It's even a bit thicker than this four ply Crawford and would make even nicer chains. But you'll have to exit by hand when you take it off the spool. It looks like this so you can see it has a lot offspring on, and this threat is cabled. Maybe you can see that it looks about the friend. I think it's very beautiful. It's very round that makes it nice, But it's also a bit harder to deal with, and you can see if you try to put in a loop. It doesn't hold this at all, and this is why you would have to hand wax it before usage. And I'm going to show you how to do that in a minute. I just want to show you another threat first. This year, ISS laced threat, and it also comes in many beautiful colorists. It's an Austrian threat, and this is very different. Still, it's not as tightly twisted. You can see that maybe that is slightly hairy, and I would only recommend it for rather light volumes. But it can be very beautiful. And again such a threat. You'd have to to hand wax before use many other bookbinding threats or leather working threats you'd have to hand wags to. There's, um this is, for example, in English threat that just simply comes without any wax on it, or this year's a German threat. If you want to buy threat through me to through Bush Attica supplies, I'm very happy to help you with choosing It can be. I know it can be a hard task to choose the right thread. So let's look at how hand waxing works, because you'll you'll need it. Eventually you can use for hand waxing. He always use beeswax, not para phone both a bleached or a natural yellow. What both be perfectly fine beeswax into one hand. Hold the threat with your thumb. Don't press too hard, and then as quickly as you can pull the threat through and you do this several times, you want the heat of the friction to melt wax into the thread rather than scrape anything off. If you scrape wrecks off. It will show as a kind of veil and and and blunt your color really and make it less vibrant and you turn the thread a bit. So get it covered from all sides sides, and you can like this. You can add as much wax as you need to comfortably work with. With your threat, you can already see that it's different. So let's compare this So we had this year's the unlocks threat. Is this the hand wax threat? Here? I have the Croft, Ford and some. So I make a king here. I might get kink here. I try to make a king here. You can get all kinds of things in between. 12. Lesson 11 Finishing Your Book: I finished two books, this chunky little fellow and the book with a colorful pages you saw most in the videos. Both still have long covers overhanging the text block. Dreaming off this overhang is the first step in finishing for me. For this, you slide in a steer ruler between the text block and your cover. Align it just exactly where you want to cut. You could have some overhang here if you wanted to. I think it looks nice. If it pretty much is at the same position as the outermost pages that are creeping forward . The creep is still part of the text block. When you've done one cover, you flip your book around and do the other. It's not overly important to get a completely perpendicular cut here. In extreme case, let's say you bound triangular Pedro's. You would want to make a triangular cut off course, and it's best to cut where it fits with the text block, and not necessarily to make sure front and back are completely the same as you can see here . It's hard to distinguish front from back and top from bottom, and so I decorated this just with colored pencils. And the book for my son is finished. Next up, my second book, The procedure is exactly the same. Obviously, um, again, I'm leaving the creep on. If you watched one off my daughter classes, you saw that for daughters. I tend to cut the creep off this. If you cut the creep off, it would be easier to, um, flipped through the book. I quite like for this large books to leave it on because I think it contributes to the handmade. Look, if you want to cut it off, then it probably would be best. Teoh, take your book to a copy shop and ask them to cut it off neatly with one of their big machines. Um, and then you don't have to do anything to the cover here. You just You would just let them cut off the four edge of the book completely. The covers, the creep, everything. So I take another look at my book and I noticed that when I when the covers opened, they won't easily shut again. That's because they were made out of cod stock. And it's easy to take care of this because they're holding together at the spine anyway, we want if we want to glue them shot. You want to add glue close to this? Fine. It's not necessary Necessary to glue up the whole surface. And I like to just use double stateside a tape for a project like this. Um, as you can see, I it's I leave a little bit of a gap to the actual the cover. Um, rub it on properly with a bone folder or, if you don't have one with your fingers so that it really sticks, close the cover and rub it on again, and you might be able to see that the end of the threat now shows a bit under this cover. And there's a way to do a bit better than this. And you see, now there cover won't just won't open like this anymore. And if you accidentally open it a little bit, just snaps shot again. So now I'm untwist ing this threat of it and separated into individual strands, which will then not add as much bulk to the cover. Now you have to make sure you really put them down separately. They, especially if it was a heavily wax threat that do tend to stick together, and now you can see they still show up. You can't hide them completely, but it's less capable. And then again, because she would pick up the book frequently and having the wrong side up, it's best to decorate the front of bed to decorate the front cover. I cut a strip of this paper to glue onto the front. For a project like this, it's easiest to use a glue that doesn't add too much moisture to the project. In the cover. You could use your double sided tape again or a glue stick. If you're concerned about archival properties off your book, there, even acai vel glue sticks around and then we're finished. 13. Bonus Track: Making a Book Using Office Paper and a Paper Bag for Covers: to demonstrate how this would look like I made another third book using office paper, I started out with a four. I used eight sheets per signature, and I made eight signatures here, ending up with a six, as explained before. This time I want to use this gift box for my covers. The first step is to open it up first. The bottom. It's easy here and generally look for seems that are usually to open and then use the paper knife up and down flat to take a look at it. These folds in the cover are just to pronounce, too. Ignore them. I want to use them, asked the full to which I will touch the cover. And I see here that I will have a piece of a cover that's larger than the signature. Without a fold just on the inside, I won't have a complete cover. There will just be a tap in all steps. Try to use poles that are already in the back as much as possible. Yeah, I'm cutting a longer value full to get two covers for my book in the next step. Now I need to trim my covers as we saw before. Now this is how it's going to sit on the book and look from the inside. I assembled my book. See whether the cover fit well, talk everything one more time and I'm ready to pre punch. And so for the sewing, I used to read thread and did everything exactly as I told you before with the same measurements. A centimeter or half an inch from top and bottom, the to cover and four evenly spaced sewing stations in between to finish off the first step . ISS as always, to trim the covers from both sides. Obviously, you saw me use double sided tape on the cover before on the wreck book, I thought that it's the cover opened unpleasantly. Now here for, um, cover like this where there's just a small tap on 1/2 of it. I find it especially important to glue this on. Um, here. I'm just gluing on the top the tap with a piece of double sided tape. You could now if you wanted to stick a larger sheet off, maybe decorative paper on the inside and even hide the scene. Obviously you want to do this on both sides, And then you might have seen in the beginning that there was this ornament attached to the back which had then just stuck on as, Ah, decoration before finishing off completely. It's always a good idea to leave through the book ones here. I obviously forgot to cut the threats when I attached to peace. So this can be taken care off now and then. This book is finished. Who? 14. Congrats, You Finished your Book! What's on Next: this class is coming to an end. I've almost told you everything I wanted to say about this kind of stitch. You've seen me make three different bindings. I hope you at least already got half plans for your own. Maybe you even got started already. If you even finished it pleased to share in the project section, I would so love to see what you come up with. This style of finding has huge potential for creative ideas, especially when it comes to the cover attachment. Look for tablet these books. Although the stitches different, the cover attachment is the same. I used here and I took the chocolate out. I attached the foil as covers and then I put the chocolate back in and had a couple of books. So where can you go from here? I do hope you make a couple off books in this style. I think it has potential. You can do all kinds of creative things, and you don't really have to move on from here anyway, where it's it's a perfectly valid binding. But if you do want to do something different, I would recommend that you after you took this class you could go to my advanced class, which is called me Evil paperback and everything you learned here you can use there and have a new binding. I also intended this class to be like a platform for a couple off follow up classes where I show you more variants off Coptic bindings this year, for example, is, um this book has hardcovers and you can see here that has a different cover attachment. These both have hardcovers. They have the same cover attachment I just showed you. These two books have used a difference ditch which is different from each other and different from the one I showed you here. This is a stitch which is called a great binding. So it's not not as such a Coptic stage. I would teach this as some kind of very end. And this book also has headbands. So to say that again, we could do different covers, different cover attachments, um, different stitching variants and had bends and the beauteous you can all combine that you can combine all the stitches with all the cover attachment and get all kinds off creative things. So let me know what you would like to see next. And then I hope to meet you again in my next class and until then, have people finding.