After completing my latest bookbinding course at Edinburgh Contemporary Crafts I felt able to attempt the ‘holy grail’ of bookbinding – Coptic Stitch by myself. I wanted to make a unique & meaningful Christmas present for my partner. He is a big fan of Mint Sauce – the mountain-biking sheep from MBUK magazine. Sadly Mint is no longer in the magazine, but he has a huge stash of Mint cartoons from old magazines. I picked 2 suitable ones for the front & back covers (having first scanned them & replaced the scanned copies back in his stash).
I covered boards with the cartoons & edged one side & the corners with buckram. I set alternate blue & green eyelets along the buckram edge. I lined each signature with alternate blue or green paper for contrast. Sewing on the final signature & cover is still a bit tricky. It is slightly easier to sew the final signature & then the cover separately but this means a double row of sewing on the last signature, which can look messy, but then again so can a single row if it is not sewn on straight.
Front view
Open view of signatures
Spine
Spine detail
back cover
