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I'd made a few commonplace books (/journals/writing books), but all so far with binding boards (or, well, makeshift binding boards), but I thought to make a nice small limp-back commonplace book that could easily be stuffed in a pocket. So I made one (using Southworth 25% cotton paper), with five signatures (so it wouldn't get too thick), and a simple leather cord closure. This is a relatively simple binding; the signatures are sewn directly to the leather binding.: And it does indeed fit nicely into a pocket:

I am thinking of making a journal/notebook in a midieval cord/board binding with clasps, (Really for a handwritten recipe book that I can add to as my recipe collection grows),and I am looking for a good paper for the signature. Some basic requirements: -Compatible with fountain/dip pens -Acid free(preferably a bit alkaline/archival) -strong enough to withstand bookbinding and use in a book -not too heavy or light (around 110gsm) fairly inexpensive per sheet I want the finished signatures to be around 10 by 13 inches. Any suggestions?

Hello everyone! Today I’d like to share with you a very big book I made last month. The style chosen was German Springback. It had to be A4 size and 4 cm of thickness of the paper. My first thought was: “oh my, this is going to be heavy!”. The paper chosen was Fedrigoni. This was the stack of paper I used, after cutting it to A3 size to fold it. The sheets were folded and sewn. Glue on the spine and some trimming done, it was rounded. Then I applied some backing cloth to reinforce the spine. I finished the spine by applying a couple of bookmarks, some headbands I sew off the book and two layers of paper for further reinforcement. Then I proceeded to make a thin cover which would be the basis for the springback structure. I applied some layers of 1.5 mm board on the spine to thicken it. On the spine, I glued four fake ribs made of leather. Then I glued two boards (a 2 mm plus a 2.5 mm) and put in on the cover, with the four sides bevelled. The structure finished, it was time to prepare the leather. It was a huge piece of leather! I used paste to attach the leather to the book. The folder is for size reference. Once it was dried, it was time to decorate! And the book was finished! The weight was about 2,5 kg, quite heavy! Thank you very much for reading up to here hehe. I enjoy sharing with you guys and I hadn't done it in way too long, so it was time to solve that. Best, Anna

Hello All, I wanted to share with the FPN crowd some bookbinding work I did, and maybe garner some advice. Here are some photos: Front Back: Spine: Lay-flat at stitches: Lay-flat at intervening pages: Usage of a guide sheet: And here's where I need some advice: The thing looks like this at points between signatures. In other words the gaps are quite big, and held together by several stitches. I'm actually perfectly fine with having it this way because it lays flat here as it does at all other pages in the book. But, it does look a bit wobbly, and the binding is a bit loose, no matter how tight you tie the knots while stitching the thing together. The thing I like about it is that no glue was used. It was purely just threads and stitching that did the job. When I had a respected bookbinder inspect this notebook, he held the closed book between his palms and gripping the covers by the fingertips of each hand, he jiggled the covers around while closed, the binding was so loose that it just wobbled like crazy. It was an embarrassing moment for me. So I got to thinking, how to improve it. For those of you that own a Nanami Seven Seas Notebook, you'll notice that on the pages between the signatures, theres a narrow strip of glue/adhesive that keeps the two signatures stuck to each other. It limits the real-estate on the page, you have to fold one page or the other (where the glue ends) to make it lay flat (if you can picture that). Also my guide sheet doesn't go all the way up to the spine at such points and it sticks out a bit because the glue is in the way. Other than that, it is largely inconspicuous. I've tried that with one of the similar books to this, but I am not keen on the usage of glue. I used an UHU gum stick (or a generic variant thereof), used a paper to cover the area near the spine where I wanted no glue to go and just slathered it up with glue and stuck both signatures together this way. In some places the strip of glue is about 5mm wide, which I don't care for. I wanted the advice from people who have dabbled in such things, how they address the wobbly-ness when doing coptic stitch book binding. Thanks.

Hi everyone, I am new to the forum and was hoping you guys could help me out with a new found hobby. I've recently retaken up writing with fountain pens and now I want to jump into the world of binding my own notebooks, it's fun and I get something really nice at the end. I've done a test run of all of the paper I could get my hands on so far and my favorite is the 85 gsm bioprima paper found in the Fabriano EcoQua notebooks, the problem I am having is I dont' know where to get just the paper. The EcoQua notebooks seem to be everywhere online and in local art stores but I can't for the life of me find a US source for the paper itself. The closest I have found was a bookbinding store in the UK known as Shepards but I would really like to avoid paying $30 in shipping to get paper. Does anyone know where I can get my hands on the paper?

So, partially inspired by the price of a good 8.5x5.5 journaling journal, and partially by TMLee's amazing thread and seeing how his journals went from where they started to what they are now...and since I've got a TON of paper my work gave me for free...I've decided to start a thread of my own cataloging my journal making adventures! Don't expect anything as epic or as helpful as the thread TMLee has going, I don't know how long this will even hold my interest. I have a bad habit of obsessing over new hobbies for short stints and them dropping them when a new one catches my interest. I'm also new to fountainpens, and journaling, so this is a big one for me since there are soooo many aspects to master and explore. It might hold me for a long time to come. So far I've been assessing my materials at hand, and figuring out what I need. The paper I have in a massive quantity is 23x35 inches, 148gsm Matte Reply Card. Its light for cardstock, heavy for regular journal pages. It takes FP inking well, no bleed or feathering, pretty nearly opaque. If I had a complaint it would be that it tends toward a fatter line than on some papers I've used. (I'm finding that line thickness has much to do with paper used as it does the nib.) Also, there are sometimes "spots" on the paper that seem kinda waxy. I know its treated to resist humidity, so that's probably got something to do with it. My lady has a ton of fabric, I've only ever seen her sew like 3 or 4 things since we've been together (5.5 years) but she's long resisted getting rid of it all. In fact she got a brand new sewing machine and a surger for her birthday 2 years ago and has never used either one. Anyway, I'm glad she was hoarding it all now, cause I raided it for stuff that might make suitable journal cover materials and I found a nice stack of stuff I think would look nice. Most of them I had myself in mind, but I might make some as gifts for various ladies in my life too, so I grabbed a few out I thought they'd like. She has some ribbons too but they're all too fru-fru for anything I'd want, and most are too wide. I thought she had a rotary cutter too, but I can't find it. Our kids have raided our craft supplies a lot over the years and stuff is a jumbled mess. I did find some thick crocheting thread in "natural", and some really thick crocheting thread in orange. I am not sure if the latter is too thick, and the former too thin but I'll experiment. I ran to the store and got some needles, to attempt to do the 2-needle coptic stitch, with all 6 needles since TMLee said it creates a tighter bind, and I'm definitely looking for that. I also grabbed an awl to punch my pages, and some white elmers glue (which IS PVA glue, in case you didn't know) I cut down 3 or 4 sheets of the 23/35 paper (man what a pain that is) by folding it a few times and trimming off the excess using a wooden ruler with a metal edge, and hobby knife. I have no type of "square" to check, or bone folder so I folded them all by hand, compressed with some heavy stuff for a bit and then marked and punched the holes. Once I had heavy stuff piled on that to squash it flat, I took an extra signature I had and cut the plastic hobby board down to size. Trying to eyeball for squareness via the lines on the self healing matt. I've identified some challenges I'm having. My craft area is cluttered and dusty. Causing me to get the paper pretty dirty. I'm sweating and leaning on the paper, causing my skin oils to get on it, which will suck when writing on it later. I don't have a bone folder so have been using my thumbnail to crease, which will exacerbate the skin oils issue. Also, sweat plus dust = dirty paper. Can't find the rotary cutter anywhere and not sure I'll ever find it, so might have to put that on a shopping list with bone folder and more appropriate stitching chord. I tried making a pocket flyleaf and glueing that together was nearly a disaster. Not sure how TMLee does that, but I definitely need to iron out that process. I'd like an elastic, but I'm nowhere near ready for that level of complexity, not to mention I don't actually have any and my "project" budget is still needing to recover from the "I'm gonna repaint my bicycle flat black" endeavors. Still haven't figured out how to get those cables back on right... I'm pretty much dead in the water until I find the rotary cutter.

Hi!!! My name is Anna and I live in Salt, Catalonia. I am a bookbinder and I am here because you have a lot of information on paper, and that interests me. I also enjoy your bookbinding/journal posts and I hope to show my work here too . Nice to meet you all!!

Hello from the piedmont region of South Carolina, where this afternoon we had several tornado warnings, but no tornados. I've been a handweaver for 45+ years, and recently started making handbound blank journals as a way of using up some of my stash of handwoven fabrics on the covers. Then I began drawing in the journals, and bought a few fountain pens, and started collecting interesting inks to draw with, and one thing led to another. . . My favorite writing pens are my Lamys, but I just got a Creaper with flexible nib for drawing. I like to use Noodler's Lexington Gray for line drawings, and sometimes I do watercolor washes over the line work. Now all I need is a few more hours in the day so that I don't have to steal time from the weaving to give to the fountain pens. Here's a page from my current sketchbook with my Creaper and Noodler's Nightshade ink. This was sketched in an old cemetery while traveling in Massachusetts last month.