secret belgium dinosaurs...

This morning I finished making the prints I was talking about a few days ago in to a dino book for my friends wedding present...


Above is the front and back, and here is what it looks like opened up...


Ahhh, dinosaurs in love :)


I'm getting to like this style of binding (the secret belgium style), even though each time I've sewn it I've done it a different way... This time I used a combination of methods involving sewing the cover around the pages but not attaching it, then sewing in the pages loosely, looping around every spine thread and then tightening them up at the end. The book feels fairly sturdy, it just took ages :)


Anyway, I'm going to be away for a week or so now as I've got two weddings in various parts of the country and a trip to Amsterdam to keep me occupied... So, have a good week, hope the sun shines where you are :)

second attempt

A while ago I made a 'secret belgium' bound book for a friend's birthday. I found the binding a bit tricky, but after receiving some helpful comments on different ways of construction I had another go...

This time I sewed the book block first using plastic strips as tapes, then constructed the cover around the book block hooking the thread under the plastic strips and connecting the whole lot together at once (thank you Mary!)

 

I must admit though, I still found it a bit tricky :) And although this time the cover seemed easier, the pages feel a bit wobbly... Perhaps a mixture of the two methods should be my next experiment; sew the book block, use it to sew the covers to the correct tension and then sew the pages to the spine and tighten it all up... third time lucky?

lobster!

A lobster book for a friend's birthday. She likes octopus and gulper eels, I hope she won't mind a lobster!

It's a Secret Belgium binding, the cover is made of three separate pieces which are then laced together...

And the pages are then attached by sewing through the cover threads...

It's my second try at this style of binding, and it took me all day! The sewing of the covers went fine, it's not really a complicated method, but as soon as I removed the tape holding the three separate parts in place it all went a bit floppy and the spine kept shifting.  

I managed to wiggle the boards a bit and line it all back up. I taped the book block (which I had previously sewn as I thought it would make it easier to assemble...) inside to keep the whole lot in shape, but this was no help as all the pages have to be laced into the spine individually with the cover open and tightened at the end... 

But I got there eventually, and I'm pretty pleased with the results... Rhonda writes here that she sews this binding in a different way to the tutorial I've linked to above, and that one day she may write her own tutorial... I can't wait!