I try to use what I have on hand, but for the life of me, I couldn’t get a good template because everything I had was either too flimsy or too much.
I have some waxed thread, but it’s meant for upholstery repair and gave me a lot of problems between the wax and the thickness.
I also have a ton of embroidery thread, but it’s too thin to work with on its own, and I kept shredding the covers.
I had purchased cardstock, but I didn’t get the right finish, so it looked like I had made a construction paper notebook for my third-grade dinosaur project.
I want to make A5 notebooks, as well as traveler’s notebook-style notebooks, but A5 paper, being slightly different from letter size, somehow costs far more than letter paper.
So…I found some letter-sized chipboard and decided to try again with printer paper and some embroidery floss that arrived today.
Here is the setup once I got all the paper cut and the holes poked through:
The next problem was that my bookbinding needles don’t have eyes large enough for embroidery floss. That seems like something a bookbinding needle should be able to handle, but what do I know?
I finally found a needle that would work—from my upholstery repair kit—and of course it broke after going through the first hole.
I found another upholstery needle that did work, finally.
This attempt went much better than the last, especially because I bought a paper guillotine and wasn’t cutting every page by hand. Clearly, I like to punish myself by cutting single sheets of paper one at a time…
I’m pleased with my second attempt, knowing I still have a long way to go.
I also need to remember to hinge the front cover before I sew everything together. Preferably with the Teflon bone folder.
Hence the awful crinkles on the finished product.
I present:
