Leather notebook - PEP BB textile.straw.leather.notebook

We were reading about how medieval books were made during my son's history class. We ended up watching some videos, and next thing you know, he's asking me to make one! Both he and his sister asked for books.

sewing the signatures together, using a metal shelf as a jig

I did my son's book first, learning not to place cloth on the binding.

fastening the cords to the book cover

cutting out the cover from leather from my mom's old couch

the finished book!

hand sewn headers neatly tucked under folded leather

The nice definition around the cords was the "easiest" to make when the leather is first glued to the binding and then the book is wrapped with twine to hold the leather to the binding. After that's been pressed for 15-30 minutes, I smoothed it with a bone (or antler?) hair stick that I had. It took a lot of smoothing to get it nice! I learned a lot from the making of my son's book that I applied to my daughter's book.

Ah-ha! Found the picture of my low-tech book press, with the twine around the binding to hold the leather to the book:

using a stack of books as a book press

Oh, and I don't have any leather working tools, but I still manged to thin the leather down where it folds over the book. I used a tiny draw knife that came with my childhood woodcarving set:

using a drawknife to pare down the leather. Not the best tool, but it worked!

I share those pictures, because a lot of the videos show people using fancy tools. But, I don't have any of those tools--just a needle, a cheap draw knife, a stack of books, twine, and thread. I doubled up the thread and twine I had to make it thick enough for the project. I bought nothing specifically for this project--it was all just stuff we had lying around. If I can make a book, you can too!

I'm not posting this for points, but more to show what sort of book would count for 5 points. I made this book for my Brother-in-Law who likes the Zelda videogame. Maybe the pictures will be helpful for other learning how to bookbind medieval books, or just bookbinding in general.


I used water color paper to make these books to have a more vintage feel than normal printer paper. Because I used such thick paper, I only did three sheets in each signature, and had to saw down a centimeter to actually saw through all the sheets in the signatures! (A signature is a bunch of paper that's folded in half and nestled inside each other)


I also sewed the endsheets along with the signatures, having them act like their own "signature." This made the end sheets work a lot nicer than when glued on (as they are if you don't sew them to the "text block" like I did).


I marbled the endsheets with oilpaints thinned with linseed oil. (Oil floats on water, so you dribble in the oil onto water in a large bin or pan and then lay your paper onto the oilpaint and then lift it up and allow to dry).


The gelatin glue worked surprisingly well. It dried quite quickly and was very sturdy!


I then glued those frayed cords down with my gelatin glue. You flare out the cords like this so that they are flatter, and also harder to go back through the cover.


Apparently I didn't get any pictures of the gluing of the leather to the spine. The key to this is to glue the spine first! The glue dries pretty fast, and you want to smooth the leather and define the spiffy ridges on the book edge. Those ridges are created naturaly by sewing the book to the jute cords. Some people sew the book to ribbon "tapes," and this makes for a smoother spine. I really like the bumps on the spine, though! To help define the spine ridges, use other jute cord to strap the spine down on either side of the ridges.

Then after the spine has dried, glue the outside of the covers. After that's dried, fold the leather over and trim the corners and glue them down!

Then, after THAT has dried, glue the end sheets to the cover. With these, make sure to leave a few centimeters by the spine that are NOT glued. This will allow you to make a nice Z-shaped fold that will allow the book to open and close fully without the end sheet pulling or bunching.

to get the triforce symbol right, I printed it out in the right size, and then traced over the picture with my pencil, pushing down hard enough to make an imprint

Then after I'd traced the images, I woodburned them!

updated Straw Textiles List - requirements did not change - points changed - see main Badge Page