All About Zines – Inspirations and Resources

by Linda | Sep 6, 2010 | my creative journal

Happy Monday to everyone and today I’m officially starting my every weekday blogging schedule, with each day dedicated to a particular topic of interest. I’ve decided to continue with Monday inspirational posts. I’m going to add more resources and links as well though, because I naturally do some research whenever I get enamored by a subject, so why not share the knowledge? BTW, how do you like my cute little banner for Mondays?

This week I wanted to talk all about zines. I most recently created my very own first handmade zine called Pensieri and received some questions about zines and making them. I wanted to share the inspiration, resources and links that I came upon through the process of creating Pensieri. Perhaps you have the urge to get into the zine making scene as well? It’s really just a another vehicle available for all of us to share with each other.A zine is a mini magazine or fanzine, usually created through photocopies and constructed by hand, thus circulated in low quantities. Ultimately it’s self-publishing that started back in the day before you could order just a few professionally bound books online. It’s very indie and reminds me of cool interest clubs from back in high school. I love the freedom we have these days to spread our ideas and zines seem to fit right into the handmade touch and crafty community.

I’ve come across really simple zines before, like Eraserqueen’s printable one-pager that folds up about color. The first zines I bought were Craft Leftovers and Mixtape. They are pretty established publications in the sense that there’s a huge following and people subscribe to them like any other magazine subscription you can order. There are still limited quantities and it’s more about the content, not the paper or such. From there I learned about many more zines through Crafty Pod’s All About Zines podcast. They really can be anything, running the gamut from simple photocopies stapled together to full-blown graphic designed books. I personally like the handmade, old school type a bit more… they just seem so much more interesting and fun to read through. I suppose the important thing is if the content is capitivating. I’ve also bought iHanna’s Mettazine and her mention of I Heart Zines and their zine swap really pushed me to create my own zine. I didn’t make it for the 2010 zine swap, but really looking forward to continuing my Pensieri zine into a series and joining in next year to swap zines with other indie makers. Swapping is a great way to make one yourself and then get to enjoy a whole variety in the end. Just like regular magazines out there, zines are fun to have, informative and sort of cool, too.

Creating a little book really forces you to synthesize your thoughts on a subject into a cohesive, finished presentation. So zine making helps you to analyze more deeply a topic you are interested in and then you are able to turn around and share it with others. The interactive zines with little bits to play with or draw in really interest me as well. I always liked those types of books from childhood. You learn something new and you have fun at the same time. That seems like an ideal situation and fun times. Maybe a word game, a pullout or some tactile item included? If you are up for a real challenge, I did come across a 24-hour zine creation challenge, but I don’t think I could ever accomplish that! Takes me a long time to create just one. Perhaps because I’m still a beginner, but I’m already hooked. I have ideas slated for my second Pensieri zine and you heard it first – it’s all about pockets, secret hiding places for your art journaling, scrapbooking and crafting. Oooo!!! I hope you’ve been inspired and please feel free to add your thoughts, ideas and resources to the comments below. Ciao ciao!

Pensieri – My First Handmade Zine

by Linda | Aug 17, 2010 | my creative journal

“Pensieri” means “thoughts” in Italian and that is the title of my first handmade zine. It feels fantastic to put my thoughts into writing and have it published in a little book format. Not only that, I had loads of fun creating this handmade zine stitched together with lots of little bits and bobs to get your creative juices flowing. This first issue is all about Art Journaling – one of my loves and I’ve made the zine into a collaborative art journal… here are some peeks…

Those who are interested in art journaling or have thought about starting, please check out the art journaling week of blog posts on Julie Balzer’s blog! It’s a whole week all about art journaling and I’m super honored to be guest posting as well. Woohoo! Check it out all week long and enjoy!

Coptic Stitch Bookbinding Tutorial (The Easy Way)

by Linda | Aug 16, 2010 | my creative journal

The coptic stitch bookbinding method is another way to bind your book with a spine that opens up completely, so you can lay your book flat.

Sometimes it’s also called chain stitch in bookbinding, but more often it’s called coptic stitch binding. I think it’s a great method for when you have book covers that are individual boards instead of completely wrapped around the entire journal spine area.

With coptic stitch you will bind all the signatures and covers together with one long thread and a connected stitch that holds everything together tightly, but still with a lot of flexibility.

The pages of your book will open up completely flat and that’s a big reason why this method is so popular. You might have seen these types of hand-bound journals around, because of the exposed stitching in the spine area. It looks pretty cool and although there are variations (as with everything) – this is my method of doing the coptic stitch with just one needle.

Bookbinding Materials Needed:

From a materials standpoint, your book is made up of the cover material, paper inside and the thread that holds it all together.

The tools you’ll need include a needle to sew your book together and an awl or something to help you punch holes.

For this particular journal, I’m using a roll of self-adhesive paper to cover regular cardboard for the covers.

The paper inside is plain cream colored printer paper and I’ll be using a curved needle with linen string. I also have an awl and holepuncher to make holes.

You can easily find coptic stitch bookbinding materials in your craft store or order them online. Here are links to the tools I have and they are pretty affordable – all available on Amazon. You can even buy a whole kit to start off with, giving you everything you need for bookbinding.

Please note there are affiliate links in this article that give me a slight commission if you click through and purchase at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting this blog!

Materials I use from Amazon:

• Bookbinding starter tools set
• Chipboard
• PVA glue
• Bookcloth
• Crop-A-Dile heavyduty holepuncher
• Waxed lined thread
• another bookbinding tool set with curved needles…

Preparation:

Before you jump into sewing your book together, make sure you have all the materials and separate pieces prepared. The more accurately you prepare all the separate pieces, the easier it will be to complete the coptic stitch without too much frustration!

First, prepare your book covers. Usually you want a thicker material to protect the pages of your book, hence the use of cardboard or hardboard or bookboard. You can then cover the boards with fabric, leather, decorative papers. In the bookbinding world, you can also use bookcloth to cover the board, which is a flexible fabric material that you can glue over your covers.

In my journal, I’m just using regular cardboard (which isn’t the strongest because it bends easily, so keep that in mind). Then I’m using a decorative paper that already has adhesive to cover the boards.

It’s a straightforward process of cutting the paper to size, gluing it to one side of the board. Trimming the excess corners and then folding over the edges and gluing them down.

Finally, for the inside of the covers, I decided to use a dark brown paper as lining – to cover that final raw cardboard that shows. I find that it’s nice to add some kind of contrasting color for the lining of your covers, gives it a pop of color and something unexpected when you open your book.

And with that I have prepared my covers for my book. However you would like to decorate your covers, make sure they are ready to go!

Then it’s a matter of choosing the paper you want inside your book and folding the papers to create your paper signatures. It’s up to you to decide how many pages you want and how many signatures you want (a signature is a bookbinding term for a stack of folded paper).

Now that my cover and paper signatures are ready, I punch all my holes to get them ready for binding.

Depending on the size of your book, it’s like creating pillars or foundations that are holding your book together. So just decide on the number of holes that will hold everything together without pages moving about.

Also, sometimes people choose more or less holes depending on how they want the spine to look. Because the coptic stitch is seen in the binding, it’s a cool design that you want to showcase. That’s also why you sometimes seem holes that are not evenly spaced, because someone chose to do that on purpose to create a cool design.

Just make sure you punch your holes in the same place for both covers and all your pages through the middle of the signatures. The key factor is to make sure they line up, so when you sew your book, it’s easy peasy and things don’t slide around.

It helps to mark your holes or create a template to mark all your holes on the cover and signatures, so you don’t make mistake.

For the cover, I punch the holes using a heavy duty leather puncher. For the paper signatures, I punch holes in the center of the folded papers with my awl – using my guide to make sure everything is the same.

Remember that your holes don’t have to be gigantic when you punch them – just enough to get your needle and thread through. Obviously the larger you punch the holes the more you are weakening the paper… so just be careful!

Once all your materials are prepared, then you are ready to sew your book together using the coptic stitch method.  It’s a pretty easy and straightforward process that is not difficult, it’s just learning a new pattern of stitching.

Also remember that you can have as many signatures as you would like in your book. Sometimes you see pretty huge and tall spines and the flexibility of this stitch makes it very movable and snake-like. I think it looks cool, but it might not be the most handy if you are wanting something practical to use. So keep that in mind!

Coptic Stitch Tutorial:

To start your coptic stitch, cut your thread in one long piece and string it through your needle to get ready to sew. Now it’s sometimes hard to estimate how much thread you will need. But you don’t want to run out, because tying knots half-way just makes it a harder process and weaker binding. But if your string is too long, you might get into trouble getting everything tangled up in knots as you work with it (hence why people like to use waxed thread that doesn’t get tangled).

One way to think about how much thread you need is definitely to measure out the whole length of your book and however signatures you have, because for sure you will have to sew up and down all the signatures of paper. Which coptic you are creating knots as well, so it’ll take up a bit more thread as well! There are some calculators out there but it makes my head hurt, so I just add more thread and keep things as neat as possible so the thread doesn’t get caught! As you make more books you’ll come up with your own way to measure out how much thread!

To start my coptic stitch, let me explain and show you in photos what I am doing. First, I put my cover down and the first signature to attache to it. I’m opening up my paper signature and starting with the bottom hole inside.

Bring the thread out and under the cover board to attach it to the signature…

I like to wrap my thread around the cover board one more time, so it’s a double loop before putting my needle back into the signature bottom hole where I came from. This is just my personal preference. It depends how large your holes are, how delicate your paper is and how thick your thread is… so try it out in the future if you want to vary up your stitch designs.

I make sure everything is tight and aligned, then tie a knot. The important part of this method of binding is keeping the cover and signatures on top all aligned…because that’s exactly how it’s going to end up in the end. You want a perfectly aligned stack of signatures on the covers, otherwise you’ll be sewing things in place all crooked. You can definitely use clips to help you hold papers in place.

From this point, I just move up one hole and repeat the process of looping around the cover and coming back up. Only difference is that there is no knot to tie, you just keep looping through to attach the signature to the cover.

When you get to the last hole, after looping onto the cover, instead of going back into the same signature you stack on another signature and go into that hole.

See how I’ve come up from the top hole in my second signature here…then I immediately go to the next hole…

…and on the outside I want to attach this signature to something, but there are no holes to go through like with the cover. Instead I loop my thread in between the signatures below it, in this case the first signature and cover. Just stick your needle into the left side of the stitch already there and exit to the right of it.

This is a kettle stitch that connects the stitches together and creates the cool pattern on the binding. It is for this stitch that I use the curved needle, because it’s so much easier to stitch it in between the signatures when you have a curved needle to loop around.

Here’s a close-up of the needle pulling the thread behind the existing stitch of previous signatures, from the left side to the right side. You are making a little loop to basically connect the new signature to the rest of the book.

Once you’ve made this loop, the kettle stitch, and tightened the thread, you stick the needle back into the hole you came from and repeat going down the line of holes.

Remember when you are sewing the thread back into a hole you have already used, do not pierce through the thread that is already there. That would be cutting through your thread and making it weaker. Just put them next to each like friends!

So repeat the process until you go through all the holes of this signature (basically connecting it to the stack you have… and when you get to the last hole, after doing the kettle stitch instead of going into that same hole again, you add another signature and go all the way up to that new signature bottom hole.

Then repeat the whole process, again and again until you attach all your paper signatures.

Once you get the idea, you’ll be able to continue for as many signatures as  you have. You are basically attached your paper signatures one by one.

Now that I have added all 5 of my paper signatures, the final thing to do is to attach the cover.

I know there are ways of attached the final paper signature and cover at the same time, but I find it confusing, so my method is to just do the same thing with the final cover piece.

With just the cover left, I sort of do the same thing. But I weave through the last signature again, meaning it will have a double thread inside, but I don’t mind that at all for the ease of understanding this process.

So going back to my last paper signature done and now having to add my cover.  I do my double loop around the cover to match how I attached the front cover and do the kettle stitch to attach it securely to the book and then go back into the last signature of paper. I move up one hole and repeat the steps. It’s sort of doing the same thing, only attaching the cover back into the last paper signature.

When I get to the last hole, instead of going back into the paper signature, I actually go in between the cover and paper signature.

I loop the thread around that stitch and tie a knot here to finish binding the book. One of these days I might learn another method that is cleaner, but this works nicely for me and the books I create are strong and don’t fall apart. So that’s good for me!

You’ll end up with a book that has a snazzy coptic stitch binding showing, very neat and secure. You’ll notice that the kettle stitches create a column of “v” or “u” looking pattern in the binding – which is very cool. The very left and right holes will look like half of that design, since it’s the edge.

Now you can see how the book lies completely open when flat on a table… because of the way it is stitched together. That’s one of the big benefits of coptic stitch binding. You can see the entire page and most people find it great to write and work in because of this feature.

Of course, if you add too many paper signatures things may get imbalanced and unwieldy, so try it out a couple times, make a couple books and see what you like!

I hope this coptic stitch bookbinding tutorial was helpful – it’s my easy process of doing it with one needle!

I have also blogged about another chain stitched journal here and even though it looks cool, I’ve found it to be too fat. So that is the warning about giant books!

Too complicated still? You might want to try some other easy bookbinding tutorials I’ve written:

• Make a journal with a sewing machine
• Accordion bookbinding journal
• Let’s Make a Journal
• Longstitch bookbinding tutorial

I like this kind of coptic stitch binding and find it cool, but I know it’s the easiest way ever. It does require precision and you want to make sure you tighten and keep things aligned as you sew the book up. Otherwise your signatures will be oddly hanging or crooked. I have even ended up tightening too much sometimes and the book doesn’t close completely because the thread is pulling on it… so beware!

You can of course, just put some paper weights on top of a finished book to even it out over time. The thread will stretch over time and use.

There are many other coptic and chain stitching tutorials out there, so don’t hesitate to find a youtube video that shows you the process in real-time or take a bookbinding course in person somewhere. It’s really the easiest way to learn, because you just have to dig in and try it for yourself!

DISCLAIMER: This post contains ads and affiliate links where applicable.

More Resources:

I wholeheartedly recommend CreativeBug (Get 3 months subscription for $1) because they have a coptic stitch tutorial as well and it’s very official by a professional bookbinder, so that is something to check out!

As with all things, once you try it a couple times, you’ll figure it out. So don’t hesitate! The results are satisfying for sure, so have fun!

Here are some bookbinding books on Amazon if you are looking to learn more:

• Hand Bookbinding
• Cover to cover
• Bound: Over 20 Artful handmade books
• Bookbinding: It’s background and technique
• Making Handmade Books

Longstitch Bookbinding Tutorial for a Leather Journal

by Linda | Aug 9, 2010 | my creative journal

The most common type of sewn bookbinding that I often default to, falls into the category of longstitch binding. It’s really a general categorization for many different methods of sewn binding. People have invented their own patterns and techniques and have probably called it something else as well. Suffice to say, it’s a general way to denote sewing your paper to the cover of your book. I’m sure you’ve noticed journals out there with exposed sewing in the binding in a variety of patterns and designs. They are all technically longstitch binding techniques, but in different patterns. In this tutorial, I’ll take you the process of creating a leather journal using a simple straight longstitch pattern through slots in the cover instead of holes. Here’s what we’ll be making…

The materials for this project include leather, paper, thread, needle, an awl and cutting device of some sort.

Regarding the thread, I’m using a natural linen thread in this example, but you can also use waxed thread sold specifically for bookbinding to prevent knotting up when sewing. For this method, you’ll be using a short piece of thread in sewing, so I don’t think you really have to worry about knotting. Even regular embroidery thread or ribbon can be used for binding. Anything that doesn’t stretch out and has some strength to it will work.

Regarding my little awl, I use it to punch holes in the paper. Some folks use a drill to go through huge stacks of paper or you can even use a tiny hole puncher if you have it. An awl is a traditional tool and you’ll really find it quite convenient. Along with the awl, I keep an old catalog to punch on top of…keeping my table hole-less. 🙂

Let me first explain how I made my leather cover, although you can do this with any other type of material. You can certainly substitute the leather with thick paper, fabric or any material that can wrap around the entire book. If you want to use something rigid, like cardboard, just make sure you cut out three pieces for the back, front and binding of the book cover. You can connect rigid pieces together with bookcloth, fabric or strong tape. Some folks connect two pieces of board with bookcloth or fabric which just leaves the binding really soft and malleable.

If I use a very heavy weight type of leather, I usually just cut it to size and consider it ready. Note the extra material on the right hand side as well. I freehand cut that extra part, so it can wrap onto the top of the journal as a closure. Entirely up to you if you want that extra flap. In this particular case I had a much thinner piece leather though and decided to glue a piece of cardstock to it as a liner paper, giving it more strength. To calculate the size of my liner paper and cover material, I usually give and extra 1/8″ all around to give the inside papers room to breath, plus the width of binding depending how many signatures you have. A signature is a term to refer to the folded sheets of paper that you will sew into your book. Usually you have several stacks of these, depending on how many pages you want in the finished book. I usually allow for 1/4″ per signature, since I’m usually pretty thick cardstock papers, 8 folded sheets per signature. If you are not sure about the measurements, the best thing to do is to prepare all your signatures, then use it to measure out what your final cover size should be. You can score your liner paper and/or cover material as well, so that it’s ready to be put together.

Let’s prepare the signatures of paper that will go inside your book. I usually go with the natural sizes of the paper I use. I don’t like to waste material, so I take whatever size the paper is and fold it in half to create the signatures and therefore, size of my book. To go smaller in size, I cut all the sheets in half, then fold to create my signatures. This pretty much creates a predetermined range of sizes for my books, since paper comes in predetermined sizes. I just don’t like cutting paper into a custom size as it’s hard to use the leftovers. In some cases, I have made strangely sized books from leftovers I’ve had lying around, so in it’s really up to you on the size. I’ve also made journals with varying sizes of paper inside, a nice way to make an eclectic junky journal. In this example, I’ve taken regular A4 sized paper (similar to Letter-size) and ripped them in half. I actually really like the deckled edge when you rip paper instead of cutting it.

I folded all these papers in half, each signature containing 8 sheets of paper. With two signatures, I have 64 pages if you are flipping through it like a book. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but really it is enough for the first time. It’s better to make smaller books, so you can keep making them and evolve after using them. You’ll start to realize what you like and don’t like. Once you have all your signatures, it’s time to punch the holes. It actually doesn’t matter how many holes you make, it can be an even number or odd number. In the end there will always be a way to sew it together. You just want to make sure there are enough to secure the book together and that they are not so far apart to create a weak/loose part of your book. Often the pattern and number of holes created is decided by what the bookmaker intends for the sewing seen in the binding. In this tutorial we’ll go with 4 holes in each signature, unevenly spaced because I measure in from the edges of the paper and just guessstimate something that looks good. After some experimentation you’ll get the hang of it and will probably start to design your own patterns!

For the cover, instead of punching matching holes for each signature I’ve decided to go with slots. This just means cutting a little line across where the holes would have been in the cover, instead of punching the individual holes. This makes it easier especially if you have a lot of signatures and don’t want the mess of aligning all the holes. In some cases you’re holes would be so close together they might actually make a slot anyway. I personally just like the ease of sewing when there’s a slot to go through and it looks pretty cool too. Mark your slot lines on the cover and carefully cut them with your knife, making sure you’ve gone completely through to the other side of your cover material.

Now that you have all your materials prepped, you are ready to sew! I work with one signature at a time, planning to leave the tied knot on the inside bottom hole of the signatures. This knot can end up anywhere you like though, since you weave in and out of the holes, you always end up next to where you started to tie the final knot. Just to give you an example of why this matters…if you like ribbon let’s say, you might actually want to use ribbon to thread your book together and make a knot on the outside binding. This could give you a decorative binding with ribbon knotted bows on the outside…just an idea! So here goes with the sewing. I start at the bottom hole inside my first signature and thread my string through to the outside cover…leaving a little tail like so.

With needle on the outside, I thread it into the next hole through the cover and signature of paper. I just keeping doing this weaving in and out until there are no holes left.

This is what you see on the outside binding…

And this is what you see on the inside. You then continue by going back down, weaving in and out the same holes.

Weave the thread in and out…making sure to keep your thread tight, papers in their position and the end tail still there!

This will basically fill in the spaces you see that doesn’t have thread running across it. In the end you’ll see thread straight across the binding, hole to hole. Finally you will reach the hole right next to your tail end and that’s when you tie it off.

I just tie a regular knot to secure it. You can also double knot it, especially with a thinner type of string to make it more secure. First signature done – wahlah!

This is a really simple way to bind your signatures into the cover one by one. Just weaving in and out with the longstitch binding technique, making sure you are tightening the thread, everything tight and nothing loosey goosey. I really like the fact that there’s thread all across the binding, but it’s created with the weaving and not a loose piece across the whole way. The most important thing is to check your thread tightness, I think.

After sewing in my second signature, you’ll see the binding looks like this…

Pretty cool, huh? If you have more signatures, you’ll probably be playing around with tightness of the threads and pushing them up and down, so it’s all straight and pretty on the binding. I finalized this journal by braiding some ribbon and attaching it to the closure flap. I also added a bead to the end of the ribbon and now I have a wraparound closure that really completes the whole look of the journal. Functional and pretty…nice, huh?

With this example there were only two signatures, but of course you can sew as many of them as needed to complete your book. If you use super thick paper, you might have more signatures by including less sheets in each stack. Here are some other journals I’ve made using longstitching and slots in the cover. You can see that a variation in the number of holes or thickness of the signatures can really change up the look.

With all the sewing in the binding, this type of book looks complicated, but it’s really the simplest kind with the straight stitching of each individual signature. Think of the possibilities if you vary up the materials, size and pattern. Happy bookbinding!