About a year ago I went on a day long course that taught us how to make Japanese stab bound books. Since then I have had a go at making a few of them and my Mum even commissioned me to make one for a friend.
This book was started at the craft day and completed later on with some flower embelishments and some beads. The binding used on this book is the simplest of the techniques we were shown and more intricate ones can be made using more holes. Also different threads can be used too and a sewing machine can even be involved as it was in the next one:
I twisted several threads together and then ran them through a sewing machine to bind them together. If you use a zig zag stitch it binds the threads together to make a sort of plait which looks very effective. The ends can then be teased out to give a fraying look.
On this book as well, instead of being able to see the edge of the pages I used a piece of blue material to edge the book which gives it a much more professional feel:
These books are great because they can be made into any size you like and can be used for anything - scrapbooking and picture albums, writing down precious notes or even can be made to be a phone book with the tabs being cut out into all the pages for the alphabet. They are really easy to make too!
