Hand bound books!

I chance upon these pics of hand bound books that I made sometime in October last year and thought I sweep some cobwebs in my blog today by sharing those. It was getting rather dusty in here, wasn't it? *grin*

I have always been fascinated by bookbinding. As a child, I use to sew signatures into pages and bound them into notebooks. I used to beg off pieces of cloths off a paternal aunt twice removed and glue a piece of each as covers for the notebooks. Then I would doodle and paint on those pages. They were my most treasured possession back then, until I got to know the world better and discard those "childish" hobbies. Who would have thought I would venture into these again at this ripe old age?

It all came about when I discovered that my 10 year old loves doodling and drawing. She would draw on stray pieces of papers and old discarded school exercise books. So I thought I make a nice handmade one for her so that I can keep her drawings and scribbles for memories. Handmade stuff has always held its charm to me. Hence my search into "How to bind a book".

My search took me to this blog by Layhoon who had learned bookbinding from a workshop taught by Little Syam. I was fascinated by those hand stitched bound books in LIttle Syam's blog!! Hence my first venture into bookbinding, which in turn led me to my new fascination with scrapbooking and mixed media !

These are some of the books that I learned to stitch. The coptic stitch, the Japanese stab stitch and kettle stitch. I really enjoyed doing stuffs with my hands, and we don't count fingers flying across the keyboard drafting causepapers, sitting in front of that laptop !





This is the coptic stitch.



This is the kettle stitch, which is one of my favourite, cos it's so decorative and archaic looking. And this here below is the hemp stitch, the simplest of all.




I bought some ribbons and frills to dress up the notebooks but didn't get a chance to do it till I got home.

Sasha will probably recognise these ribbons *grin* Most of my minibooks and albums has some of her ribbons on them.

I brought some more supplies from Little Syam to practice at home. Unfortunately, those are still sitting at my shelves. Haven't found time to do any more yet. But I had found making a hand stitch bound book a satisfying pursuit.

My 10 yr old Kimberly always carry one in her backpack when we go out nowadays. She has a handmade journal and a scrapbooked notebook. I think she has gotten into the habit of scribbling thoughts and reminders in school and dooddling and drawing in them when we are out. She also stuck ephemera that she found around her room into her scrapbook, like a letter from her friend, Misha received 2 years back, of which she was too lazy to think of where to keep, so she simply glued the envelope onto her scrapbook. Will share her 2 handmade books later if time permit.

For those with kids who like to scribble a lot, these are very good options for a child to nurture his or her inspirations if you don't fancy buying a store bought sketchpad.

You guys have a great week ahead now. Happy Thaipusam to those who are celebrating!!