I have filled my latest sketchbook to the last page, so now I can indulge in these three new-bound beauties! I bought nine Fabriano Artistico hot press watercolour papers to fill these books with. Two of them are rebound from old books (no, I don´t mind slaughtering old books, as long as I buy them in cheapo second hand shops and am sure that they are boring enough so that no one will ever buy them and actually read them anymore), and one is bound with coptic stitch with covers made from an old vinyl record cover (AND no, I don´t mind slaughtering old record sleeves either, as long as the record is scratched and no good – good records need their covers, bad ones don´t).
I have found the best, easiest and neatest coptic stitch
description so far in a book called “How to make books” by Esther K. Smith. I found it not long ago in a bookshop here in Stockholm. It´s full of smart and easy books to bind yourself, and a great plus is that the book itself is incredibly goodlooking. The page design is excellent, it´s a pleasure to browse through it just to enjoy the graphic design inside.
Anyway. I´m starting out with the “West Side Story”-book, it has a perfect format for keeping in my bag at all times. The Fabriano paper is actually thinner than the 300 gsm I usually go for (I think it´s 200 gsm). I thought I´d try a paper that isn´t so sturdy this time. It makes the bookbinding easier plus it gives me more pages per spine centimeter (ha, there´s a new term for ya!). It seems to be just as good with ink and wet washes as the thicker paper, so I think it´ll work out fine.