Finally finished my first full leather binding last night

I started this project about 3 months ago, a beat up copy of an old poetry collection I found at a thrift shop in Fargo. Last week I was still fighting with the headbands, they kept slipping on me. But I got everything glued and pressed and I pulled it out last night and it actually looked... decent? Has anyone else had that moment where you step back and realize the thing in your hands is really yours?

2 comments

2 Comments

nelson.nancy17d ago

Did you use a specific type of glue for the spine? I always get paranoid about mine cracking after a few months, especially with all the flipping open and closed. Had a journal fall apart on me once during a road trip, and I learned my lesson the hard way.

dianas5017d ago

Oh man I feel this so hard... I remember pulling my first project out of the press and just staring at it like "okay this is actually a book now" even though the corners were kind of a mess and the leather had a weird wrinkle on the back. Tell me why I thought I could skip practicing headbands more than once and now I've got three notebooks sitting in a drawer that I'm too embarrassed to even give as gifts because the stitching looks like a drunk spider did it. About your glue question though, I've been using a PVA blend and so far my books haven't fallen apart on me but I definitely feel like I'm tempting fate every time I close one.