This week I decided to focus on creating models of binding structures that are not part of my everyday repertoire. I have a bad habit of always selling the books I intend to keep as a part of my model library, so I took precautions and used paper I hate for the pages. Two birds with one stone: books that serve the model purpose perfectly, but are not something I'd sell because of the paper, and I get to use some of that big lot of slippery paper (unfortunately there aren't enough book structures in the world for me to ever run out of that paper by making models for myself).

My first two models are of a sewn board binding that's been on my to-do list forever. I'm not sure if my teachers knew about this structure at all when I was studying for my bookbinding degree, but I first saw it years after graduating. Now it seems to be everywhere! You can find several tutorials for it online, but just to name two, here's an excellent one by Karen Hanmer, and here's another one that has lots of photos. I didn't follow any particular tutorial, but picked the features I liked best in what I'd read. In the future I think I'll tweak things some more, use more fillers to keep everything even more smooth and level, and little things like that.

Having a good plough, freshly greased and sharpened, is really useful in making sewn board books, but I see no reason why you couldn't make one without a plough. I usually really enjoy the look of torn pages on my books, but sewn board binding with its covers the same size as the pages looks especially good when everything is cut super neat.

I used brown recycled cardstock for the sewn covers and left it visible on the book I covered with old dictionary pages. In the full cloth book I covered the spine and the exposed parts of the cover board with soft teal coloured paper and I really like that little pop of contrast colour.

I think most good bookbinders have a look of their own that ties different types of books together regardless of the techniques used. I look forward to seeing what my 2016 caterpillar stitch looks like! I haven't done one since 2004 or 2005... Any suggestions what binding structures to tackle after I'm done with the caterpillar?

I hope you all have enjoyed the midsummer week so far. Our household won't be doing much to celebrate Juhannus tomorrow and Saturday, but I expect some effort will be put into having a few delicious meals even if the bonfire is missing. Whether or not we go to sauna depends on how hot our home is to begin with - if it's already hot inside, it doesn't really make any sense for us to heat a room just for the sake of the tradition of going to sauna on the midsummer eve.

Do you have special midsummer traditions where you live? I'd love to hear about them!