Coptic Stitching

I like to make books, I like Star Wars and I like to give away stuff. I thus combined all three these things and made a book with Darth Vader on the cover that I will give away and hopefully generate some advertisement for my shop on Etsy – Induku.

The 3 easy steps to enter and stand a chance to win this awesome of the one-of-a-kind, hand-made notebook are below this picture:

Win this notebook!

There are 3 easy steps to enter:

Like the Induku Facebook page (here).
Share this post on Facebook by clicking here.
Leave a comment on this blog with your answer by clicking here. The easy question is: What is the material I use in all of my projects?
- Hint: you can see it in every item in my shop.
- VERY IMPORTANT to leave a comment as this will allow me to enter your name into the draw.

Competition conditions:

By entering you agree to abide by these rules as well as the conditions below:
The competition will end on the 29th of February 2016 and the winner will be chosen on 1 March 2016.
Your answer will be displayed in the comment section of this post and only the first answer per contestant will be valid.
A random winner will be selected if more than one person have the correct answer.
A valid email address is required for you to be contacted (this will not be displayed or shared).

Good luck!

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The story of this book (and more images):

This cover is one of the first things I cut with the scroll saw. For a long time I did not know what to do with this image until I decided to make books and wooden covers seemed to be an excellent idea. This cover was thus laying in my workshop for almost a year with several other items that I like but have very little use.

darth vader front

darth vader open

For some reason I really enjoy binding books, especially using coptic stitching. My shop is thus slowly filling up with handmade books. Some of these I don’t want to sell (like the one in this competition) and I am therefore having this competition. I also need to generate some traffic to my online shop and this seemed a good way to do so (any shares on any social or other media would thus be very much appreciated).

darth vader bind

darth vader stich

I have loads of ideas of what to cut on the front cover. Most of these will be my own design or modifications of images that I like.The Darth Vader image in on this book is a bit of an exception since I was mostly testing my scroll saw at the time and wanted to cut an image rather than design one.

I will post some of my new projects on this site, including new books with some of my designs. I would, however, like to do more commission work and if anyone wants a custom, hand made, book or notebook do not hesitate to contact me with your idea.

Technical details:

Size of book 148 mm x 210 mm (5.8 x 8.3 inches) – A5 international paper dimensions.
14 signatures (140 pages)

The pages are bound with Coptic stitching displayed on the spine – this goes well with the general look of the covers.The stitching is done with bees-waxed embroidery floss. Coptic stitching allows the book to open completely and lay flat when writing/drawing/painting.

Robroy

p.s. feel free to sign up for our newsletter to keep up to date with new items and exciting competitions:

I had a couple of pine plywood pieces left from a previous project, that did not work exactly as planned, and thought I could use it to make some novel book covers. I like Coptic stitching and wanted to extend this theme into the cover itself. I thus decided to cut the wooden covers into several pieces and stitch them together again. When I bound it into a book I got the following:

Final product!

The process of making such a book is quite simple. Here is how I did it:

Blank cover

I start with a 2 blank covers just bigger than an A5 sheet of paper. I stick the covers together with masking-tape. The plan is then printed and pasted onto one of the covers.

Plan

First all the holes are drilled where indicated and then all the pieces are cut. Below is an image of all the pieces drilled, cut and sanded.

Cut pieces of the two covers

I used 2 different stains and different numbers of coats in a semi-random fashion to get a few different tones. After the staining was done I added 5 layers of glossy clear lacquer to both sides of each piece.

Fitting the pieces

I wax the thread using some bees wax (I saw this technique online – link below).

Waxing the thread

The stitching is quite simple. I just stitch trough each hole twice making a cross on the front.

Stitching begins

Closeup of stitches

Almost done

Fist cover – other projects in the background

Both covers are done. They show the difference between the front and the back of the stitching pattern. Note also that I added extra holes on the edges to add additional detail where the binding to the paper would be.

Both covers done – front and back shown

I fold 70 A4 pages in half and make signatures of 5 pages each. The 14 signatures are stacked and clamped ready to be cut. Note also the edge stitching is done in the image below.

Clamping the pages

Usually an awl is used with some template to punch holes in each signature. I prefer cutting the holes with a scroll saw. This way they line up perfectly and small slits are created rather than holes. The Coptic stitches lies also a bit deeper when done, making a much cleaner binding.

Using a scroll saw to cut the pages

Slits rather than holes for stitching

The binding then begins with another long piece of waxed thread.

First signature

Slowly adding signatures – 14 in total

Finally the book is done. I am quite pleased with the result.

Done!

Inside of cover

Middle of signatures

Closeup of Coptic stitching

Adding some branding

I really enjoyed making this book. The final result is quite unique. Some people have mentioned that they prefer look of the stitches on the inside and it is possible to bind it the other way around – this was just my preference. I will sell this book in my shop (buy it here) and possibly make more using a similar technique.

I recently learned how to do Coptic stitching mainly from looking at the following videos by Sea Lemon:

I found this channel as an extremely useful resource for this type of project.

Lastly I want to mention that I used the image of the cut pieces in a competition (here). I will soon make another book that I will give away in a competition. Below is the covers ready to be stitched. I will use Coptic stitching and have a black front cover page. I am quite excited to have this done and see how it turns out!

Sneak preview of next book giveaway!

Robroy

Induku Design

Designer Wooden Objects

Darth Vader book competition – Closed!

Stitched wooden cover notebook.

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