This is the start of a three-video project to bind a modern combination long and link stitch book with a limp cover,
inspired by a 14th century book held at the Bodleian in Oxford.
As you can see from the photos, the original has a wrap-around parchment cover with a fore edge flap that wraps
from the back to the front.
I don't think this book ever had a closure system, but I'll add a simple one.
There are six rows of sewing holes, and I'll use these to sew in twelve sections, even though the original has less
than this.
Rather than explaining all the design choices now, I'll do that during the video.
In this video, I'll prepare the book block and make the cover.
In the second video, I'll sew the book.
And in the final video, I'll show the weaving on the long stitches and adding the closing string.
I'll start by folding paper.
I'm folding 12 sections - each six sheets - of 80 gsm Clairbook A4 short grain paper.
This is a nice paper to write on and will make a nice journal.
I sold out of Clairbook a couple of weeks before Christmas, and I only have my bindery stock left, and the importer
doesn't know when their next shipment from France will arrive.
The price went up twice in the last six months.
The disruption to global supply chains is having a big impact on availability and price of bookbinding supplies in
Australia. I don't consider this an historical model, so I feel free to use whatever paper I want.
However, this paper is not a bad analog for this book.
These limp bindings needed little swell and usually have thick sections.
The exemplar has a thickish sewing thread and parchment stays in the center of each section.
I won't use stays, but I will use a thicker thread than my instinctive choice would be.
Medieval limp bindings are a huge range of books.
A good overview can be found in Szirmai.
Szirmai explains why it's so hard to subdivide this class of books, but I'm going to ignore his issues and for the
sake of my videos, divide medieval limp bindings into bindings where the cover is attached by primary sewing, and
ones where the cover is attached by secondary sewing such as tackets.
And then I'll divide the first group into those with stiff spine plates and those without.
I plan to do a series of projects based on historical exemplars, focusing on books with covers attached with
primary sewing and stiff spine plates.
This in itself is a wide range of books using combinations and variations of link and long stitch sewing and a range of
decorative and structural features such as decorative link stitch sewing and weaving over long stitch.
I suspect YouTube will get sick of these projects well before I do.
It's usual for historical examples of these bindings to use one row of holes for each pair of sections.
Holes for each section would mean such closely spaced holes the cover and spine material would be compromised.
There are versions of long stitch that use slits instead of holes, but that's not the binding I'm doing today.
There are another two variations of the link long stitch combination that I'm aware of, which both use an additional
hole at the head and tail for the link stitch.
I need to think about how wide the spine of the cover will be.
I need enough space to accommodate a small amount of swell, but I don't want the binding to be sloppy or wedge shaped.
In a previous version of this binding, I had nine sections and used 18 millimetres for the width.
And this worked very well.
Scaling this up, I get 24 millimetres for this book.
Comparing this to the uncompressed spine, this feels like a good width.
For the cover, I'm using some sort of decorated board that I got from a bookbinder's estate.
Unfortunately, I have no idea what it is.
Any 20 point card stock will work fine, or strong heavier paper - something like a heavier, handmade cotton khadi
paper would work well.
There's no square on this book, so I cut the covering material to the same height as the paper.
I don't trim the edges of the paper, but if you want cleaner edges, you can trim the paper - just cut each
section to the same size.
Because I haven't trimmed the fore edges, the thickness of the spine folds adds a little to the width, and I make the
front cover 151 millimetres wide.
I mark the cover for the front, the spine, the fore edge, and a flap going onto the front.
I make the front flap 100 millimetres wide, which is more than I need.
And I'll trim this to size later.
On the inside of the cover at the spine, I draw lines where the sewing holes will be.
I use the same dimensions as the exemplar: 20 millimetres at the head to the link stitches and 25 millimetres at the
tail. Then 25 millimetres to the long stitches and the long stitches being 35 millimetres long.
I decide to add a button to the center of the spine to use for a closure.
I'll use a pair of dividers to find 1/7th of the width of the spine, and then I'll prick this off at the head and the
tail, and then I'll use a ruler and an awl to transfer these marks to the lines in between.
I'll make the holes using a Japanese screw punch with a 1 millimetre bit.
I will do a video sometime in the future on making an historical model of this book, and I'll find a more
appropriate tool to make the holes then.
I made two holes for attaching the button, but I'm worried the covering material isn't strong enough and the button
attachment will tear through the cover.
I use a piece of parchment on the inside to reinforce the cover.
You could use a piece of plastic if you don't have parchment.
I use some thinner 25/3 linen to attach the button.
I'll make a punching template to pre-punch the holes in the sections.
I draw a line across the spine of the sections at the head, so I don't lose track of which way up they go.
From the photos, the spine pieces on the exemplar look like unlaminated thickish pieces of leather.
The spine pieces on this style of binding are made from a wide range of materials, including: leather, leather
laminated with parchment, horn, and wood.
I'm going to laminate two layers of covering material to some Siegel goat leather.
This is one of the rare cases where you'll see me use PVA with leather.
In this book, there's two stiff spine plates, one for each set of long stitches.
I think it's more common for the spine to have one large spine plate that goes from head to tail, but the two pieces
is not uncommon.
Next week, I'll finish making the spine pieces and sew the book.
In the third video, I'll add the closure string and do the weaving over the long stitches.
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Until next time, cheerio.