Binding Commitments Part 2 of 3

Practice Books Style 2: Paper Tape Binding Inside the Spine

This was a triumph-ish of my understanding of geometry, not skill; and not having proper prescribed bookbinding material, time spent thinking about  material on hand and how to use them. The result is Meh-ish as a book, but a bespoke sentimental sketchbook for me. (That reason at the end of the post.) 

This is how the spine looked before the cover went on. 

I used a piece of cotton, iron-on fusible interfacing, and back-of-sketchpad cardboard for the cover.

The fabric is spotless and well-pressed, but the blotches are some of the glue coming through. I haven't got a handle on how to prevent this, because I am spreading the glue as evenly as possible, but obviously not doing a good job. I could investigate types of glue, also. 

I cut the cotton too close to the corner, not considering the thickness of the cardboard, making the corners fray. I put a whole lot of glue on the corners, which I hope will help. I also intended to glue the book block closer to the spine so the pages... stay inside the cover. I can't remember what went wrong there.   

This is my homemade spine. This was the biggest challenge, and the result is a little delicate. It's good enough for my sketchbook, but I must try to not to handle too roughly.  

Decades ago when I started to read up on bookbinding, I found the exactitude required overwhelming, I never tried anything challenging. Of course having proper material/tool helps in obtaining better results, but if I'm only making fun sketchbooks for myself, there is a kind of thrill? in making them with material I have, and thinking/making up methods that's... original/quirky/unconventional/dangerous!      

This fabric swatch is old. Possibly while I still lived at home, I bought two cotton fabric to make summer skirts, one in blue and natural stripe, one similar but a little bit of red added. Mom looked at the two stripes I took out of the bag, and exclaimed, "Oh, just that little bit of red raises the temperature of the colours so much!" And somehow, immediately, I liked the blue and beige so much better than this one with the red. The skirts are long gone, as is leftover from the blue and natural, but this narrow strip stayed with me as a lesson of sorts.

I have one more style of book I want to make.