Wednesday, September 06, 2006

At last I have got round to binding new watercolour pages into an old cover. I chose this French grammar book from my shelves because I liked the size (11x16cm; 4.5x7"), it was in reasonable condition, easy to take apart and I didn't think I'd ever need it. After I'd taken the pages out, however, I started to read them and thought how much better French grammar was explained therein and if only I'd had such a book when I was at school... To do the rebinding, I followed Jan's instructions - very easy and satisfying. Thank you Jan for inspiring me.
More technical details requested by Jana: In this book, there are 5 signatures(sets of pages). Each signature is 3 rectangles of paper, folded in half to make 6 pages, 12 sides. The paper is Arches watercolour, cold-pressed, medium rough, 185gm/M2 - this makes a spine thickness of about 1 cm. Jan hasn't explained how to do the stitching. I already knew a method or two - I now want to do another with smooth paper so maybe I will do some diagrams of the stitching method as I go along. If you are comfortable with a needle, this rebinding of a book takes only a couple of hours, you get the pages you want, any extras added in that you fancy and the pages open flat.

5 comments:

Jana Bouc said...

I'm excited to find a new post here...more memory drawings coming soon? I'm curious how long it took you to do the rebinding and how many pages you were able to insert? It's such a neat idea but I'm afraid it will be too time-consuming. Looks good!

Julie Oakley said...

Well done, I really would like to do something similar but feel that time and my lack of skill at this kind of thing are against me. I was interested to read that the pages open flat, because that was one thing that was putting me off.

Jan Allsopp said...

Oooh, I like it! Looks great! Lots of fun really isn't it. I couldn't describe the stitching on my blog because I'm too verbose! What do you think you will use it for? French... maybe a trip, or daydreaming...

Tami said...

I have read that it is quick and pretty easy! The only problem that I am having is hearing my Mother gasp when I tear the existing pages out of a BOOK!!!

I like the idea of making it my own way, thought about alternating linen colored and white pages for a choice in backgrounds. Looks like you did a perfect job!

Donna said...

This is a very cool idea, I love the choice of books. Tami has been telling me about the book, Now I'm really excited