Jen taught us how to stitch together paper books by hand.
We learnt how to make a couple of different types of books.
First we needed to get the pages ready. We just used normal white paper and folded this in half. Then we made little dividing pieces of paper to give the book sections that we could sew easily. We used some of our handmade paper from Annie's workshops as well as some hand coloured pieces to make the borders. also used a heavy card covered in paper or fabric for our covers.
We marked each section on top to know which was the right way up using a small pencil dot.
When these were ready we got a single piece of paper and folded it (left) and marked where we needed to make the holes for our stitches.
We then placed the sections under this template and using the pencil marks made holes in our pages with a pig needle.
When we had made the holes we were ready to get our thread. We measured this using the ruler an strung it onto the needle without making a knot.
First we pulled the thread through the cover.
Before stitching the sections of paper in too.
To join each section together we needed to push out needle through the holes and then twist them around once. We called this 'going swimming'.
When we were finished we would tie the thread and put a little bit of glue on it to stick it down.
It was not always easy!
Some of us made a different type of book.
With this one, we still started with all the little sections but instead we had one heavy and joined cover with the spine cut out. We stitched through the space of the spine and into the sections.
We would take the needle an thread and line it up ...
...and push it through the next section.
We would push the needle and thread through from the spine into a new section, then around the side
We would leave a small loop of thread and after coming around the side thread the needle through this.
and pull tight.
FINAL PRODUCTS
