Basic stitched bound book binding tutorial

A step by step tutorial covering the creation of a stitched bound book, one of the simplest variations of traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc, early bookbinding techniques.

I pulled this together after gathering up the notes I had been making whilst prototyping a number of hand made book styles for my forthcoming book release: the floods. You can read more about the books progress here – The floods limited edition book.

Benefits of this style being:

• You probably have most of the materials and tools already.
• No gluing involved (Caveated by next point).
• You can use your printed images as the pages in the book or glue images onto blank pages which then form the pages.
• You can use both sides of the page for images.
• It is very simple and quick to disassemble and reassemble to test variations of book contents and sequencing, etc.
• Almost certainly you will have plenty of images to choose from, but will of course need printing – either yourself or outsourced.
• An almost infinite number of variations can be developed from this but the tutorial will focus on this example ONLY.
• It’s quick, rewarding and addictive.

Downsides of this style of binding compared to other styles

• The pages don’t lie flat, although that can be overcome to a great extent.
• As the pages don’t lie flat it also means a 2 page bleed isn’t really practical, again this can be overcome somewhat with fold out pages.
• The book can become unwieldy, dependent on page size, paper weights and numbers of pages.

Preparation

This tutorial is based on an A4 sized book but of course the steps and comments are translateable to other sizes.

Work through these steps before starting the construction phase.

Before we start lets look at some basic book terminology which will be used throughout the tutorial.

 

The materials

Note: See resources section for details of some suppliers.

1 – Paper for the pages

• Generally a lighter weight works better. As the pages curve over the spine when opened as opposed to fold flat, as you progress through the book it can become unwieldy. Choosing a lighter weight paper can help overcome this but this should be balanced with how you intend to present your images.
• Landscape orientation is likely to handle and function better than an equivalent page size in portrait format, as will an overall larger book in either landscape, square or portrait.
• In reality you can use any paper, don’t feel the need to restrict yourself to the standard paper brand manufacturers.

2 – Images – may or may not be the pages of the book

• If you intend to print your images and use the print as your page, a lighter weight paper may be more prone to wrinkling. A double-sided paper of between 150-220 gsm weights works reasonably well. I used an 188gsm paper weigh for my prototyping work. If you do use a heavier paper then you may need to consider reducing the number of pages.
• Alternatively you can take an existing set of printed images and glue them into a book produced with blank sheets of paper.

3 – Paper / Card for the cover

• Again, lighter the better but sufficient to provide protection. Something around 300gsm works well but be aware that if you are going to print on the cover your printer may not be able to take a heavy weight paper/card. With some manual encouragement I was able to feed a 325gsm card through my Epson 3880.

4 – Thread for the stitching

• A lightly waxed thread protects from fraying, but anything in essence will do; sewing thread, string, thin garden wire, even twisted paper! I started with some cotton thread from a craft shop but quickly progressed to a lightly waxed thread.

Optionally:

5 – Other papers for aesthetics

• Additional papers to act as endpapers or decorative inserts such as translucent, etc.

Tools

1 – A punch / drill

• Something suitable to make the holes in the pages/cover. Pins, punches, awls, drills – powered and hand, etc.
• Consider the size you are going to use as it needs to suit the thread and size of needle.
• I started with a bradawl I had in my tool box, then obtained a Japanese Book Binding drill (1.5 mm bit) and also use a small cordless power drill with 1.5 mm drill bit for drilling whole book blocks.

2 – A needle to thread with

• Bookbinding size needles are available but I found something suitable in our household sewing kit which equated to a bookbinding needle size 018. It doesn’t need to be too sharp as you will have already created holes to thread through.
• Clearly you need to be able to thread you chosen stitching material with it!

3 – A ruler

• For general measuring purposes. If this is going to be your straight edge for cutting then consider a steel ruler (ideally with non-slip underside and longer than the book dimensions you are working with).

Optionally:

4 – Clips

• Something to hold the materials together when making the holes and/or stitching.
• Bulldog or fold back style work well but they need to be large with a wide opening to accommodate the thickness of your book.
• I find the 50 mm fold back style clips work well. I’ve see others use double width bulldog style ones to great effect as well

5 – Some scrap card

• Used to protect the book from indentations from the clips. Offcuts from your cover card work fine.

6 – Some scrap wood

• If you are going to be drilling the holes in the book pages/cover then consider doing this on top of some wood to protect whatever surface you have underneath.

7 – A knife

• If you are going to be cutting materials to size then a good sharp blade will be required. Consider using a scalpel or craft knife as opposed to a ‘Stanley’ knife for this purpose. Retractable ones are inherently safer.

8 – Scissors

• You’ll do most of your cutting with knives but a pair of scissors is always handy.

9 – A cutting mat

• If doing cutting work a mat saves damaging the surface you are working on. Consider a mat with the largest surface you can store and layout but certainly at least twice the size of the book you are working with.
• I have a couple of these from different manufacturers. I’ll likely only buy Rotatrim branded ones from now on – double sided; imperial one side, metric the other.

10 – Glue

• If you are going to stick images onto the book pages then you’ll need some glue. Something PVA / paste based will work but may be too damp and wrinkle your pages so Pritt-Stick or equivalent is ok for this. You’ll also need this for creating double page foldouts or other creative elements.

11 – Brushes

• For gluing, a selection of sizes to deal with intricate work and covering larger areas such as cloth covering book covers.

12 – Other stuff

• Over time your book binding toolbox may also collect; set square, triangle, Rotatrim cutter, manual creaser machine, variety of pencils, rollers, glue roller, small paint tray for glue rolling, bookbinding awl, different length rulers a variety of bone/teflon folders… and so on.

Other considerations

1 – Image layout

• The positioning of the image on the page is critical; if you are going to be printing your book pages then this is important!
• The stitched style of binding creates a broad fairly inflexible spine so the pages flip over the spine rather than fold; this prevents the pages from lying entirely flat as you open them. This means as you leaf through the book more space is taken up in the book gutter (inside margins) to accommodate the thickness of the pages. As such you need to think about offsetting your images towards the fore edge (outside) of the pages so the images don’t get obscured on their inner edges.
• For me this was reasonably simple as I work with a landscape orientated 4×5 format on A series papers. When offset, this leaves a generous inner margin for the gutter.
  

2 – Stitch pattern

• An almost variation in options here but as a minimum consider something that gives the book sufficient strength when being handled and read and, meets your aesthetic requirements.
• You can stitch with a single hole but that’s unlikely to work for you. For smaller books, something in the region of 4 or 5 holes will work; it certainly did for many millennia for the Asian continents and is their ‘standard’.
• Position your holes somewhere between 10mm and 20mm in from the spine edge. Anything closer to the edge runs the risk of the page/cover tearing off as you open the pages, although a fairly stiff cover may help to prevent this. Consider holes towards the top and bottom of the spine edge to give the corners re-enforcement. More holes equal more strength but more stitching.

 3 – Hole template

• Having decided on your stitch pattern I would recommend making a template to help guide and ensure accuracy in the hole making stages.
• Take a piece of paper or preferably something stiffer like thin card and mark out your stitch pattern. Some editing or other software products can be used to get a very accurate pattern, which you can then print onto your template material. Then carefully and accurately punch out the holes using your chosen hole making process.
• Mark the front of your template! Although not strictly necessary if you have a perfectly symmetrical pattern it can help keep things clear as you work through the construction.

4 – Material preparation

• As obvious as it may seem, prepare all the materials, i.e. cover/page printing, any creasing of papers, etc, before stitching the book. Otherwise, you’ll need to unstitch and start again – that said a big advantage of stitching over glued book techniques though.

Construction

Having worked through the preparation stages we can now start the construction. Read right through first so you know what’s to be done when!

1 – Making the holes

Note: Take your time with this, once done very difficult to undo!

Method 1 – A few pages at a time

1. Take a few pages and add your template on top to create a ‘block’. Knock the block of pages up on you work surface to get all the edges square.Lay the block of pages down flat on the surface with the template facing upwards and then carefully punch/drill your holes using your template pattern.
2. Repeat this process until all your pages and covers have holes.

Note: Whilst this method utilises the most basic of tools it has the downside of the potential for your hole pattern to drift as you work through the blocks of pages.

Method 2 – The book in one go

1. Gather together all your cover and page materials stacked and orientated as they would be in the final book. Add the template on top.
2. Knock the block up on your work surface to get all your edges square.
3. Take your clips with scraps of card underneath both jaws of the clip and apply along the head (top) and tail (bottom) of the book to hold everything securely together.
4. Lay the block onto your work surface with your template facing upwards. Add any protective materials underneath, i.e. pieces of wood.
5. Carefully drill out the holes following your template pattern.

Note: The drilling process may cause a slight bulge around the hole. You can press or hammer this back down before unclipping the book.

2 – Stitching the book

Excuse the amateur sketches illustrating the stitching process. You’ll get the knack of it after a bit of trial and error.

Note: Where you start and end your stitching and thus where the thread is tied off is a personal choice. The knot can be hidden or exposed as a feature but is somewhat directed by your choice of cover material. Using a stiffer cover makes it more difficult to pass the cord internally through the spine to allow you to tie of inside the book and therefore hide the knot.

• Measure out your thread – about 5 times the spine length will be fine for 5 holes for a book about 10mm in thickness.
• Thread you needle.
• Assemble all of the covers and pages into the final orientated and sequenced running order. Do not include the template!
• Knock the block up to align everything (you can check all is good by passing your needle through the holes).
• Stitch the book as follows:

Note: I would recommend you try the exposed knot method first.

Method 1 – Exposed knot

Note: Ensure you apply sufficient tension to the stitching to keep the book spine tight, but not so much you cut the thread through the cover/pages.

1. Optionally clip the book together to keep it aligned.
2. Choose which hole you want to start and end your stitching on and whether you want the knot on the front or back of the book. As the knot is visible this is more critical than the hidden knot method.
3. Assuming a front exposed knot – With the front of the book uppermost, start by passing your needle and thread down through your starting/ending hole, leave about a 4 inch tail of thread behind – this will be for knot tying.
4. Loop the needle completely round the spine and pass back down through the same hole, pull tight – be careful not to pull your thread tail through the hole and completely out of the book! Your needle is now on the underside of the book.
5. Now pass the needle up through the next hole higher up the spine, pull tight. Loop the needle right round the spine and back up through the same hole, pull tight. Your needle is now on the top side of the book.
6. Continue this loop through and around process until you reach the top hole.
7. At the point you reach the top hole, you will need to perform the threading and looping process twice on the same hole. Once goes around the spine and then once more around the head (top) of the book. This squares of the corner and gives additional rigidity.
8. You then begin to move back down ALL the holes in the book performing the looping and tightening around the spine until you reach the bottom hole. Once you reach the bottom hole then perform the twice looping on this hole, once for the spine and then for the tail (bottom) of the book.
9. Having completed the stitching on the bottom hole work back up the book looping as you go until you get back to the starting hole. Do not loop through this hole again unless you want a double thread showing on the spine for this one hole. Instead simply pass your needle underneath the spine loop thread already there and tie off.
10. You should now have a continuous line of thread along the front and back of the book, with a single loop of thread around the spine at each hole location, with an additional loop of thread around the head and tail corners.
11. Decide how you want to finish off the loose threads; where to knot them, cut very short or make a feature of them.

Method 2 – Hidden knot

Note: The starting hole is less critical, but likely to be one of the central ones.

Note: The approach is same as method 1 except for the start and tie off. To hide the knot we must start and end the stitching within the pages of the book. It’s unlikely you’ll be able to perform the first step with the book clipped together though. But this doesn’t matter as you can knock everything into line and perform tightening once the first loop around the spine is done.

Tip: If you wanted to try this method with a hard / stiff covered book the trick is to intially leave the stitching loose. This allows you to flex the book enough to be able to pass the needle and thread back internally into the book where you starting thread tail was left. You then work along the stitching tightening it and finally tie off internally. Allow yourself a little more thread for this method (A spines length). An analogy would be similar to lacing new shoes, leaving them loose enough to put on, then tightening and tying to wear.

1. Separate the book block roughly in half to give access to an inside hole.
2. Pass your needle and thread down through a hole in the lower half of the book block ensuring you leave about 4 inches of thread tail lying on the uppermost book page of this lower section of book, not flaying out of the spine. This is important as you need the start and end threads inside the book to tie them off and hide them.
3. Now place the upper half of the book block back onto the lower section and roughly align (the 4 inch tail of thread should now be trapped within the pages of the book).
4. Take you needle and loop completely around the book block and pass back down through the same hole as you started on, pull tight – be careful not to pull your thread tail through the hole and completely out of the book!
5. At this point you can now knock the book block up to align everything and clip it to hold it secure.
6. Now pass the needle up through the next hole higher up the spine, pull tight. Loop the needle right round the spine and back up through the same hole, pull tight. Your needle is now on the top side of the book.
7. Continue this loop through and around process until you reach the top hole.
8. At the point you reach the top hole, you will need to perform the threading and looping process twice on the same hole. Once goes around the spine and then once more around the head (top) of the book. This squares of the corner and gives additional rigidity.
9. You then begin to move back down ALL the holes in the book performing the looping and tightening around the spine until you reach the bottom hole. Once you reach the bottom hole then perform the twice looping on this hole, once for the spine and then for the tail (bottom) of the book.
10. Having completed the stitching on the bottom hole work back up the book looping as you go until you get back to the starting hole.
11. This is the tricky final step. Unclip the book if you had it clipped. Your book is stitched now so will hold itself even without the thread being tied off.
12. You need to pass your needle and thread back through the starting hole from the top but the needle needs to exit internally within the book where you separated the book to start threading. It’s easy enough to find as you’ll find your 4 inch tail of starting thread there.
13. Tie off the threads. Done well they should disappear into the spine.
14. You should now have a continuous line of thread along the front and back of the book, with a single loop of thread around the spine at each hole location, with an additional loop of thread around the head and tail corners and hidden knot.

3 – You’re book is now complete

• Check your book over and enjoy!
• Note: If things aren’t as expected or you want to change things it is then a simple process to unstitch the book by either cutting off the knot if exposed and pulling out the thread or as I do, run a scalpel along the spine cutting the threads and then pull out the shorter lengths of threads.

Overcoming some of the limitations

As I mentioned earlier there are some limitations with this approach which I’ve developed some alternative approaches.

1 – The cover does not lie flat

• This can be mostly overcome by adding a crease on the cover parallel to the stitching, about 5 mm inside (right-hand side) of the stitching itself. This allows the cover to entirely fold back on itself.
• Tip: Adding a crease is a simple process of scoring card/paper to allow the material to be neatly folded. Easily achieved with a straight edge and narrow blunt instrument – bone folders and dedicated creasing tools are available for the task but the blunt backside of a table knife or narrow end of a tea spoon handle, etc, could be used. Remember though, don not cut all the way through the card and the fold is made away from the creased side. So for the front cover this means creasing the back of the cover and ‘training’ the fold before you stitch the book!

2 – Pages don’t lie flat

• As above, this can be overcome with creasing. However, the crease lines need to be staggered in increasing distance from the stitch line as the pages progress through the book thereby allowing for the increasing thickness of the spine as the pages turn over. Again, creasing will be on the reverse of the page.

3 – Double page spreads/bleeds not possible

• This can be achieved by gluing an extra sheet of paper to the back side of the fore edge of an existing book page – best done before the book is assembled. This allows the extra page to fold over the top of the inner page to form part of the book itself. You would need to print, cut and crease your pages accordingly to create a double page folding out spread – with printing both sides if necessary. In theory you could create an accordion style multiple page fold out with images printed both sides this way.Note: These pages are not stitched in; they are secured by the glue.Note: You will need to make sure your fold out page is narrower on its gutter side than the page it is glued to allow it to fold out without interfering with the spine.

Resources

Well, Google search on simple terms such as ‘stitch binding’ and ‘Japanese book binding’ bring back a wealth of links for information, as does similar searches in YouTube.

Otherwise, the following has a good deal of history on variations and techniques for stitch binding, as well as further links to other sites:

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~dawe5/bookbinding_pages/BB_welcome2.html

Sage Reynolds, a very talented bookbinder also has a great library of bookbinding tutorials on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/Ceropegia

For materials and tools consider the following, otherwise most good art and craft shops have a good selection of materials that can be used:

Shepherds (London) – http://www.bookbinding.co.uk

Ratchfords (Stockport) – http://www.ratchford.co.uk

Variations

Almost infinite! Simple options to consider being:

• Alternative cover materials including cloth covered boards.
• Cover cut outs showing the internal contents, fold backs and wrap overs to create the illusion of western style books and, internal pockets to hold loose pages or prints.
• Combinations of end papers; materials and covers.
• Different stitching materials and patterns.
• A whole host of different internal printing and page material options.
• Slipcases and other forms of boxes for the book.

1 – Wrap around rear cover

Rear cover wraps around the fore edge of the book block and tucks under the front cover. Opening the front cover reveals the extra cover which in turn when opened reveals the contents of the book.

2 – Internal pockets

The card based cover version makes it straight forward to create stitched and glued in internal  pockets for either adding prints.

3 – Cloth bound slipcase

A simple slipcase bound in cloth with an inset picture on the front.

4 – Box case (4 opening flaps)

A variation on a typical clamshell box and slipcase. In this version all 4 sides of the box open, revealing inset pictures and ultimately the book. For quick access the cover can be flipped back to expose one opening like a slipcase from which the book can then be withdrawn.