These 3 notebooks use different variations of long stitching and they look so great together as a set. However, they are soon going to be separated as they are now available at Greenjeans for those who will want to take home during the holiday season.

Visit Studio CaiLun for more pictures.

When you make mistakes during the process, it sucks. I hate to rip up the threads and redo the sewing if I get a mistake. There, call me lazy. This book has 3 major flaws: a) I skipped a loop in the stitching which I was not going to re-sew; b) the folded edge of cover is worn; and c) I ripped a page on the spine at one of the sections! What are you going to do when you rip a page at sewing? I mean, to me that just sucks. I wasn't going to redo it all over again. So I decided to keep this one for myself. Now all of a sudden it becomes so special to me.

Happy New Year! I wish everyone a great 2006 to come.

To start off the year, I suppose a perfect binding is perfect for the occasion. A perfect binding for a perfect year. A prefect bound book comprises of single sheets glued together on the spine, without any stitching or folding. The cover is usually a paper-cover rather than using boards. The key to a "perfect perfect bound" book is jogging. The pages should be jogged evenly on the spine before gluing. After jogging on the spine edge, I clamp the book block together with clamps. You can also put it between a press or a vice. Always check and make sure every sheet is flushed and aligned at the spine before appying glue.

In addition to previous 2-Section Pamphlets, these are some new creation. The one on the left is red and white, perfect for X'mas! Also, re-designed bookplates are used in these books.

Using the bronze bookcloth as the tape support (by folding it 3 times), the 2 covers appeared to be linked together seamlessly. It creates a rather eye-pleasing effect.
Colored-paper is used as the outermost folio at each section, with their heads and tails trimmed to reveal the white inner sections. This automatically adds an additional color (white) to the composition.

This is a long stitch book, in which the spine is slitted to allow the stitching to go though. The exposed threads on the spine are tighten by tying together with another thread.
The red threads appear to be too strong for me now. A yellow or natural color thread would probably work a lot better. The red is perhaps too dramatic?
But then again, since the sections are composed of red and yellow sheets, the red threads may not be a big deal afterall.

I produced a few of the stitchings described in Keith Smith's Volume II Non-Adhesive Binding: 1-2- & 3-Section Sewings. It is super fun and quick to produce pamphlets. They are also great as gifts. I have made a bunch and gave them to friends already. The most fun of all is to play with different combination of colors: cover, threads and the sections. The bold colors are constrasting with each other and the results are amazing.

Using regular letter-sized paper, I made a notebook for Morry with simple coptic. The size of the book is half letter-size. Regular letter-size paper is so conventional that, the size of this books feels just so natural. There are 12 sections in this book, making it really substantial to hold.