>I’ve finished a couple more journals; see the pictures below. The first three show one that I just finished this morning (008,) using the single-needle coptic chain stitch. This was my first attempt, and the only thing I need to remember is to give myself more length on the thread next time. I figured with six binding stations, six lengths would be sufficient (that is, roughly six times the height of the book.) I got all the way to the last hole in the back cover before I had to tie on just a little bit more, and that was annoying because you can’t just tie waxed floss and pull it through a hole in a signature. I got it, though. Mental note: one extra length next time!

The coptic chain stitch is weird, because if the stitches are too tight, the signatures begin to get crammed-in like crooked teeth, but if they’re too loose then the book is too loose and that’s just undesirable. Sigh. It does make for a neat-looking spine, though.

The last picture in this series shows two paper-bound journals I created, the little one (006) in just a couple of hours and the other one (007) over two nights. 007 is a chopstick journal, but I cut off the tapered end of the chopstick to make my job easier. The resulting pamphlet/journal is shorter than a chopstick (duh) but looks good nonetheless.

Actually, 006 and 007 are also my first attempts at trimming the rough edge of the book block (the pages tend to form a point in the middle of each signature, giving the fore-edge a sawtooth look, which is often trimmed flat in mass-production books.) I used a rotary trimmer and got something less than what I desired, but it was still much more flat. I think I could really use a better tool for that.