Last week the suggestion of making ones own sketchbook came up. That was a wonderful idea! I had some watercolour and vatman papers in A3 format just sitting in the cupboard, decided to use them both.
I cut the sheets into 4 and folded signatures, 2 small sheets per signature and 2 signatures per A3 sheet. I made 10 signatures for both paper types. Didn’t mind the paper grain, just worked with what I had. After folding the signatures, I left block under pressure, otherwise the sketchbook would be too fluffy.
My initial thought was to make a softbound book. I have some leather scraps I planned to use and sew the signatures through leather. But – softbound doesn’t give any support needed for drawing. Plus, there will be gaps between signatures, which would limit the use of sketchbook. So I opted for hardcover instead.
I used kalingur (sturdy thick cotton) strips for sewing supports. I do have a sewingframe, but these kind of small projects I prefer to make without one. My glue is Sitol, basically PVA, but dries a bit quicker. Note: with PVA you need to be quick, precise and definitely know, what you are doing, otherwise use paste. Dries a lot slower, but allowes to fix errors.
Rounded the back, sewed on headbands and Voilà! the bookblock is ready. For covers I used 1 mm thick cardboard, a little piece of leather for spine and some wallpaper.
And that’s it! My little sketchbook with two types of paper. My mind spiralled on to new ideas – black and white blocks, dos-à-dos and leporello bindings….
Happy,
Hedvig
omailm 