Day 2: Today's Pick — A $24 Bookbinding Kit That Made Me Make Six Books
I bought this on a whim in February. By the second week, I'd made my mother a guestbook. The kit is $24. The hobby it unlocks is enormous.
Today's thing — A $24 Bookbinding Kit That Made Me Make Six Books
The good stuff
- ✓Clear instructions and a real awl, not the toy kind
- ✓Linen thread is high quality and well-spooled
- ✓Makes you instantly bad at something delightful
The shrug
- !Need a cutting mat (not included)
- !First book will be embarrassing
My in-laws gave me a stack of letters my husband wrote in college. Beautiful, mortifying, occasionally brilliant. I wanted to bind them into a book. So I bought a beginner bookbinding kit, expecting to fail.
I have now bound six books.
What's in the box
- One bone folder (small, plastic, perfect)
- An awl with a wooden handle and a real point
- A spool of waxed linen thread, gray
- A folded instruction booklet (which is itself a beautifully stitched signature, a flex)
- A scoring template
- Ten signatures of unprinted text-weight paper
You will need to provide your own cutting mat, a craft knife, and approximately four hours of uninterrupted time on a Saturday.
The first book
Was bad. The spine was crooked. I had pulled the thread too tight, so the signatures puckered. The cover board was off-square because I had used kitchen scissors instead of a craft knife. I almost gave up.
I did not give up.
The second book
Was less bad. The spine was straight. The thread tension had eased into something I could feel. The instructions had become unnecessary. I made it for my sister and she cried, which is the highest possible review.
The fifth book
Was the husband's letters. I had ordered a stack of nicer paper and a decent piece of bookcloth from a supplier the booklet recommends. The book is now on our shelf. He has not opened it. I think he is afraid to. That's also a kind of approval.
What surprised me
How fast the threshold drops. After three books, you stop following instructions and start choosing your own thread color, paper, signature count. After five, you start eyeing other binding methods (Coptic, Japanese stab) and reading PDFs from university press archives.
What didn't surprise me
The hobby is rewarding because it is irreducibly physical. You cannot speed-run a book. The signatures must dry. The thread must be the right tension. The bone folder must work the spine for as long as it must. There is no shortcut. There is just the time it takes, and at the end of the time, there is a book.
What it is and isn't
Not a craft kit you blow through in an afternoon and abandon. It is a tiny, complete starter on a hobby that will outlast you if you let it.
The kit is twenty-four dollars. Do it.
Tomorrow: a regional Italian biscuit you have to keep in the freezer because it's too good to be safe at room temperature.
Reader reactions
(6)Did this with my 11-year-old over a weekend. She is now bookbinding the entire Warriors fan-fic series. I have created a monster (good).
Tried the same kit two years ago and gave up after book one. Coming back to it after this review.
Pro tip: get a cheap awl block (a chunk of foam) so you don't punch holes in your kitchen table like I did.
Made a journal for my partner's birthday. Spine is a little wobbly. Reaction was the same. Recommend.
Have been binding for 12 years. This is the kit I recommend to friends. Fair pricing, real tools.
I am not crafty and I made a mess. But it was a fun mess.
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