Hammer and Sew: Making Our Own Journals in a Bookbinding Class

A few months ago, I got interested in bookbinding. I perused several websites and blogs, reading over their how-tos and studying photos. Ultimately, I decided this was an activity I'd never do on my own, so I gave up thinking about it.

So imagine my delight when I saw that our library -- which has always had an outstanding children's summer program -- was offering a bookbinding class! I signed us up immediately.

Two Crazy Women, a Maine-based educational partnership, conducted the class. There were quite a few folks, young and older (thank you very much) alike. I appreciated the way Pam and Amy prepared for the class. All our materials were ready for us, but we participants actually did the work of making our own journals.

Here, Miss Priss hammers holes into her first "chapter," more formally called a signature.

After hammering, we stitched the signature pages together with -- get this -- dental floss. You can, of course, purchase much more expensive bookbinding materials, but why would you? Then we hammered and stitched two more signatures, and then stitched the signatures together, as Tiny Girl demonstrates below:

After stitching everything together, we selected our cover materials. Here is what Miss Priss selected:

Next, we glued the material to thin cardboard, then the signatures to the cardboard, and lastly, the wallpaper pieces to the inside covers of the journal.

And here they are!

Will we ever do this again? I don't know. It was a LOT of work, especially for those of us new to the craft. But we are all pleased with our results.