Hand bookmaking with fabric: Binding and finishing the Farm Friends book

Are you ready for the binding and finishing of the Farm Friends soft book? The earlier production steps can be found in this post.

Binding and Finishing

Now that the signatures for the Farm Friends soft book are complete, they need to be gathered and collated in preparation for the binding. 

Two 4-page signatures and book cover of "Farm Friends" soft book.

Stack the signatures on top of the inside front/back covers. Check to make sure the pages are sequential (reader spreads) before you commit to the sewing.

Binding the book: Saddle Binding
In printing terms, "stitching" refers to the use of wire staples to secure the signatures of a book. When bookbinding thread is used to bind a book, it is called "sewing," or Smyth sewing. In quilting and sewing, the terms "stitching" and "sewing" mean much the same thing.

Take the prepared stack of signatures and pin or hand baste them in place in preparation for the saddle binding. The term "saddle binding" comes from the equipment that is used in book production. The signatures straddle a device similar to sitting on a saddle. For the fabric book, the signatures are laid out flat and sewn through the center of the pages, in the gutter. A saddle binding (as opposed to a side binding) allows a book to open flat.

Pin the signatures in preparation for bookbinding.

Binding by machine or by hand
If binding your soft book by machine, it's a good idea to use your machine's walking foot or an even-feed foot. If you enjoy hand sewing, this is a great opportunity for a bit of hand work—which is what I did on my book. I decided to try out a new 12 wt. thread I got in a Sulky Petites thread sampler pack. I used a backstitch.

Saddle binding the soft book by machine (left) or by hand (right).

Once the saddle binding is done, your soft book is complete. I particularly liked the fact that the book's cover is slightly larger than the text pages (a nice detail!). This protects the inside pages (one job of the cover), keeps them from peeking out when the book is closed and makes for a nice tidy presentation.

The cover extends beyond the inside pages of the book.

Be sure to fill out the bookplate on the back cover with your Ex Libris.

Farm Friends bookplate.

Creative Bookmaking and Embellishing
A soft book like this one can be sewn and assembled in an hour or two for the quilter or sewer with some experience. It is also a wonderful beginner sewing project. You might also consider these creative techniques for embellishing, enhancing or "illuminating" the pages of a soft book panel:

• thread painting the farm animals or background scenes
• embroidery and hand stitched embellishments
• free-motion quilting
• top stitching or edge stitching the pages—metallic threads could simulate gilding
• the small format is ideal to experiment with surface design techniques.

Got ideas? Leave me a comment! The creative possibilities for quilters, sewers and fabric book artists are boundless (pun intended?).

With a couple hours invested in the bookmaking, this soft book will also provide hours of reading enjoyment for you and a youngster. What better gift is there than to give a book... or to read and re-read it aloud to a child... or listen to a new young reader read it aloud to you?

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Bookbinding tools for making Soft Books
In addition to my sewing machine, these are the tools I used for my soft book production. The bone folder has a blunt tip and rounded edges and can be used for folding and scoring paper as well as a point turner for soft books. The other tools are basic sewing tools.

Bookmaking tools: appliqué scissors, bone folder, point turner,
threads for machine or hand binding.

A note of Thanks and Gratitude to the professors in my undergraduate (NIU) and graduate (RIT) schools who instilled the love of typography, printing and bookmaking in me and fellow classmates: John Henry, Archie Provan, Jim Mannino, Emery Schneider, Werner Rebsamen, Joe Brown, Dr. Julius Silver, Joe Noga, David Pankow and also to Frank Ramano.

Here is the print production video from this post.

Hand bookmaking with fabric: The Farm Friends book, part 1

"Farm Friends" soft book.

Typography, page design, book and print production—these are a few of my printing and publishing "loves." I've had a rewarding career in the printing industry and now that I work in the textile industry, making this sweet little project—a fabric book—brought back wonderful memories for me and blended loves from both my careers.

This fabric book, or "soft book," is from a fabric panel that is usually 36". You can find a variety of these soft book panels at your local quilt shop [YLQS].

I'll take you through the fabric book production steps and equate them to the print-on-paper bookmaking process as well. Because print production terms are ingrained in my brain, I'll provide links to their definitions to help clarify. Here goes…

The Press Sheet / The Fabric Panel
The press sheet [fabric panel] is comprised of all the 2-page spreads that make up the book before it is assembled.

24" fabric panel for the "Farm Friends" soft book.

This book is a self cover book, meaning the cover is printed on the same stock/paper as the text pages. You can see the front and back cover spreads, the inside front cover and the inside back cover, and all the book's inside pages on the panel.

This is a self cover book.
Shown here are the outside and inside front and back covers.

Since the book is already paginated, you don't have to worry about page imposition and the story reading incorrectly. 

Two-sided Printing

With ink-on-paper, when a press sheet is automatically printed on both sides with a single pass through the printing press, it is called "perfecting." This term is commonly used with offset lithography. With a digital printer, it is called "duplexing." With the fabric book, the single-sided spreads have to be trimmed out and manually stitched together back-to-back to simulate two-sided (duplex) printing.

Cut out the fabric page spreads. 

This is not difficult. Instructions and diagrams are found on the fabric panel. The instructions indicate which spreads back up each other...

Book assembly instructions are printed on the fabric panel.

The diagram shows the pagination.

…and the corresponding folios (page numbers) are found on the pages. This makes it easy… however...

Page numbers are printed on the pages.

A Note on Bookmaking Conventions
… It was slightly disconcerting for someone with a publishing background to find that this book did not follow the page numbering convention. For English texts (texts read from left to right), the odd numbers should appear on the right-hand (recto) pages and the even numbers on the left-hand (verso) pages. 

But back to the soft book production…

Duplexing
Got long lengths of batting trimmings? Here is where they come in handy.

Batting trimmings were used for this fabric book.

Take the corresponding page spreads and sandwich them together with a piece of batting. I used long scraps of low-loft 100% cotton batting—trimmings from larger quilts. Pin and sew around the outside of the sandwich, leaving an opening for turning. I did a little back stitching on either side of the opening for strength.

Sandwich, pin and stitch the book spreads.

The corners and batting were trimmed close to the stitching to reduce bulk.

Trim corners and batting to reduce bulk.

Before turning, press open the seam allowances on the side with the opening. This will provide a straight crisp edge for finishing. Turn the piece right side out through the opening. Use a point turner or bone folder at the corners. Press.

Press open the seam allowances before turning right side out.

Here are the completed 4-page signatures and the cover. Binding and finishing will be covered in Friday's post. Stay tuned...

Two 4-page signatures and book cover.