Making a Japanese Spine Bound Book - the hard way

I have been a member of Bilston Craft Group for a couple of years now and evey now and then we have a workshop with a bought in tutor, instead of one of us teaching.  This month we were making Japanese Spine Bound Books.

I meant to take pictures as I was going along but it took so much concentration that I didnt even think about it. So I am afraid all you get is the final work. 

We started with a piece of mountcard and some leave,  which we glued onto said mount card to make a printing plate.  Then we brayered black acrylic paint over the leaves and pressed the printing plate onto the fabric. I rubbed the back of my fabric with my hands to get a good impression.  Because acrylic is fast drying by the time I had done the basic covers the fabric was ready to stitch.

We made the covers by cutting the front one and inserting a masking tape "spine" (so the front will bend. Next time I will do the same to the back) then we drilled holes through both covers and the pages (I think I would do this a bit at a time).  The important bit here is to hold everything together with several elastic bands so it cant move!

I enjoyed sewing the fabric,a quiet hour out from the hectic concentration of making the basic book.  I seem to be in a fairly minimalist phrase at the moment (VERY unusual for me) and decided just to stitch one leaf and some seed stitch (in the same colour as the fabric) around it. This adds texture without being "shouty" if you know what I mean?  There is just one bead. That was added for my friend who was with me - she was about to send for an ambulance as I wasn't doing bright colours, mega bling and loads of stitch. Well we all fancy a change every now and then.

The trickiest part was wrapping the fabric round the hard covers and sticking it down. Just about everyone else had a fairly random pattern on their fabric but I needed my main leaf to be top right third. If there is a hard way I will find it!  So it took me a long time and a lot of fiddling to get it right. I have decided that next time I would use spray glue not double sided sticky tape to fasten the fabric because it should be easier to line up.

The finishing touch was to thread the ribbon through. I was feeling very impressed with myself until I got to the end, Pulled the ribbon tight....and it snapped 😒.  By this time I was getting a bit tired and if I am honest a little cross. So after a bit of under the breath swearing I employed my key skill - improvisation - and wrapped the ribbon round to the back and glued it down. Thank goodness for multipurpose glue. It has saved my bacon on more than one occassion.

Can you see the mistake in the finished book? The masking tape spine has collapsed making the front cover shorter than the back. I am going to colour in the edges of the paper (more improvisation) and then no-one but you will know that it was a mistake.

The whole session reminded me how much I love book making, and of course the first version of any book is always the hardest but stitched covers really appeal to me.  I would love to make more of these and as I have some mount card and paper precut next time I get a free day I am good to go.   As I want to practice on my home made printing press this seems like a good way of combining two things.