Crisscross Stitched Book

I'm excited to share my handmade book project created with Club Scrap's Dahlia collection for this month's blog hop. If you arrived from Pam's blog, you're right on track.

This project is quite literally a "scrap to treasure" transformation. I still have some work to do on this big pile of paper end cuts that has accumulated by my paper trimmer, but I reduced the stack by a few sheets when I made this project.

All of the inside pages in this mini album came from the big stack of paper.

The signatures were stitched into the spine with three rows of crisscrossed black linen thread.

Let's take a quick look at the book making process.

1. Trim two 4.25x4.5 covers and one 1-3/8x4.5" spine from chipboard. Use an empty cereal or cracker box or a sheet of the stabilizing board Beth uses to protect your papers when shipping Club Scrap orders to your door.

2. Mark a vertical line every 1/8" on the chipboard spine with a grid ruler and pencil totaling ten lines. Measure and mark horizontal lines at .25, 1, 1-7/8, 2-5/8, 3.5, and 4.25".

3. Trim a 12x12 White Dahlia print to 6x11.5". Adhere the chipboard covers and spine onto the paper with a 1" flap on all sides. Maintain a gutter of approximately 3/16" between the covers and spine. (The gutter should be slightly larger than the thickness of the chipboard, which can vary.)

4. Use a paper piercing tool or push pin and cork board to pierce a hole at every intersecting pencil mark on the spine.

5. (Twenty minutes later . . . ) Miter the four outside corners of the paper, wrap the paper flaps around the chipboards and adhere with CS® Bookbinding Glue. 

6. Trim a White Dahlia Print to 9-3/8x3-3/4" and adhere to the inside of the wrapped cover; burnish carefully and gently make creases for the spine.

7. Flip the book over and pierce through each hole once again to transfer the stitching holes through the inside spine cover and flaps.

8. Create ten signatures of five sheets of 4.5x8.5" white text weight papers and fold in half. (The size of my scrap pile dictated the size of my book. At this rate, I can make about 245 more books.) Pierce holes into the folds of each signature at .25, 1, 1-7/8, 2-5/8, 3.5, and 4.25".

 9. Thread a needle with black waxed linen. Enter the first stitching hole from the inside of the first signature, and exit the first hole of the first column on the outside of the spine. Stitch down into the second hole, second column, while adding the second signature. Continue adding signatures, stitching up and down through the first and second rows only. Once you've added the tenth signature, sew your way back to the first column, adding the "x" to every stitch. Be careful not to miss any holes, or you'll have to pull the thread out and try again. (Don't ask me why I know this.)

10. Once the first row of "x" stitches is completed, finish the book by adding the second and third rows in the same manner. Each signature will have a double layer of stitching on the inside of the fold.

11. Finish the book with a stamped sentiment matted with Orange and Black papers from the Dahlia collection.

I've got tons of room for note-taking!

Next, visit Esther's blog to see what she's created with this gorgeous collection.

Tricia