Coptic Stitch Binding

It's been over 2 years now since The Fuzz and His Sweetie participated in this Book Boiling Project back at the old Art Blooms Studio in town.  Sadly that place has been closed for some time now.

But...

The other day His Sweetie was looking into putting together some sketchbooks and ran across this tutorial for Coptic Stitch Binding.

It caught The Fuzz's interest.

Remembering his boiled pages, he figured this was the perfect chance to actually do something with them.

And so began this Coptic Book Project.

After the pages were boiled this is what it looked like.

So the first thing was to cut them apart and sort them into "Signatures" ("A" below)  to be bound together.

The Fuzz had a bunch of scrap leather samples (B) he had picked up back in his days on the trash truck.  So he decided to use a couple of them for the covers.

After the holes were punched through the signatures he used one as a template to punch through the leather with the awl (C).

Now it was time for the actual "Coptic Stitch".

The needle was threaded (D) with some heavy thread- almost a light cord.

This was first passed through the first signature from the inside.

On the outside it passed around the cover and up through the pre-punched hole.

Next, came a turn around itself...

And then back into the signature, and out the next hole, where the process was repeated.

Each time the thread was looped around the cord under the signature directly below the one being sewn.

This procedure continued with the rest of the signatures and 2nd cover.

Here's a closer look.

Well that's all for now.

Next time we'll finish up with the covers.