Leather Sketchbook

I’ve taken a break from card making and made some books! I finally got some leather suitable for bookbinding so I made this sketchbook.

This is a long-stitch book where the pages are sewn directly into the cover, using (you guessed it!) long stitches. I found instructions and inspiration from one of my favorite bookmaking books, “How to Make Books,” by Ester K. Smith.

All you need is the leather and some paper! I had acquired some paper from a friend of mine that was a nice thick weight that I thought would hold the shape of the book and not be too floppy. The leather is from a grab bag of leather scraps that were of a decent size and were nice and supple.

Cutting the paper

The “signed” signatures

After cutting and folding the paper I had to keep the signatures in order to sew the pattern. I made a pattern on graph paper and punched the same pattern on the signatures and on the leather. The leather also needed trimming, sometimes a natural edge is interesting but I did not like the edge so I trimmed it.

Punched signatures using pattern

Trimmed leather

Sewing

I like to tie the threads together on the outside, it looks cool and it also wrangles them nicely.

I had many ideas on how to fasten the book, there are ties and clasps, all sorts of ways, but I went for an envelope style book fastened with a button. The clean look worked well with the binding and the cat I foiled on the front.  It was interesting to use my new Foil Quill on the leather. The image looks a little fuzzy but it definitely transferred the foil.

Here’s the finished book! I do love the cat.

(It is a black leather book, the bit of sheen on the leather made it hard to photograph.)

All photos and content are copyright protected. Please do not use any pictures without permission. Thank you! ©2019