How do I bind a notebook by hand?

Hand bookbinding scales from a twenty-minute pamphlet to a lifetime craft, and the first version is genuinely useful. What makes the difference between a book that opens flat and one that fights you is a small number of unglamorous details: which way the paper grain runs, how sharply the folds are creased, and how evenly the thread is tensioned.

Safety

What you'll need

• Paper for the pages, and a heavier card or paper for the cover
• A bone folder
• An awl or a bookbinding needle
• Linen or waxed thread and a large-eyed needle
• A cutting mat, steel rule and sharp knife
• Bulldog clips or a folded template

Step by step

1. Check the grain direction of the paper.Paper has a grain, and it folds cleanly and hinges freely along it and cracks and resists across it. Tear a small strip both ways — it tears straight along the grain. The grain must run parallel to the spine, or the book will never open properly.
2. Fold the sheets into sections.Several sheets stacked and folded together make a section, or signature. Four or five sheets is a comfortable number; more than that and the inner pages stick out badly when folded.
3. Crease every fold hard with the bone folder.Run the folder along the fold under firm pressure. A sharp crease is what makes a flat, tidy book; a soft fold gives a fat, springy one that will not close.
4. Trim the fore-edge if the sections are thick.The inner sheets project further than the outer ones once folded. Trim the open edge flush with a steel rule and repeated light knife passes, or accept the stepped edge as a feature.
5. Make a punching template.A spare strip of paper folded to the same length, marked with the hole positions, laid inside the fold. Every section then gets identical holes, which is what makes the sewing sit straight.
6. Punch an odd number of evenly spaced holes.Three or five for a pamphlet stitch. Punch from the inside of the fold outwards, into a cutting mat or a folded cloth, keeping the awl vertical so the holes line up on both sides of the paper.
7. Sew the pamphlet stitch for a single section.Start from the inside at the middle hole, out to one end hole, back in to the far end hole passing the middle on the outside, then back out through the middle. Tie off around the long stitch, one end of the thread either side of it, and the knot sits neatly inside.
8. Tension the thread evenly as you go.Firm enough that the sections sit tight against each other, loose enough not to tear the paper at the holes. Uneven tension is what makes a spine that bulges or twists.
9. Link multiple sections for a thicker book.A simple linked stitch takes the thread from each section into a loop on the section already sewn, building a spine that holds itself together. Sewing onto tapes across the spine is the traditional stronger method and is the next thing to learn.
10. Attach the cover.For a pamphlet, sew the cover in with the section as one. For a multi-section book, glue the sewn spine, line it, and attach boards with an endpaper. Let glue dry under a weight, which is what keeps a book flat.

Tips

• A bone folder is worth buying rather than substituting. A fingernail or a ruler both mark the paper, and a sharp crease from a proper folder is visibly different.
• Waxed linen thread grips itself and does not tangle, which makes sewing far less frustrating than ordinary sewing thread. Running plain thread over a block of beeswax achieves the same thing.
• Press the finished book under a weight overnight. Books are made flat by pressure, not by care during sewing, and a night under a stack of heavy books transforms the result.

Common mistakes

• Ignoring the paper grain — A book with the grain running across the spine will not open flat, the pages crack at the fold, and no amount of pressing corrects it. Checking takes ten seconds by tearing a scrap.
• Punching holes freehand — Sections with holes in slightly different places sew crookedly, the spine twists, and the book never sits square. A folded paper template solves it completely.
• Too many sheets in one section — The inner sheets project a long way at the fore-edge and the fold becomes bulky and soft. Four or five sheets per section and more sections is the answer to a thicker book.
• Pulling the thread too tight — It tears through the paper at the holes, usually at the end holes, and the damage cannot be repaired without redoing the whole section.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask