A Book of Verses

  I get to cross one of the "biggies" off my list. I wanted to make a book of Bible verses that have to do with walking, paths, being guided, etc. I found 185, which is about half a year's worth if I read one daily on my hike. So I'll go through it twice... or as many times as necessary.

After I found the verses, I just printed them on both sides of regular paper and cut them in half, then folded the halves so that the pages are 4.25 x 5.5 inches.

Then you sew the signatures. each one is four sheets of paper folded together, making 8 pages. It's hard to see the stitches, but look in the fold above my fingers.

Lest you start thinking this is some wonderful, high-powered project, let me say that I learned the basics of this decades ago in Girl Scouts. Got a badge for it. Don't think it was specific to the craft, maybe part of Dabbler or some other craft badge. Also, I skipped a lot of the steps that would make this a really fine project. This is called "fast and dirty."

After the signatures are sewn, you fasten them together with some tape through the loops on the back side. The tape is white, so again, you have to look hard to see it, but it's under the thread.

Then you use some gauze glued to the spine to help keep the signatures from slipping all over. This isn't done very well. I only had stretchy gauze and wasn't able to get it very tight.

Here's where I skipped a lot of steps in real bookbinding. There are things that should be done to make the spine more durable and rounded and protected at the ends. I went straight for the covers. Just glued some fabric to cardboard.

But, as with any bound book, it's the end papers that hold the pages to the cover.

I did clamp it all for a while.

Looks like a book! It won't last forever, but it will be a nice touch to the coming year.

In other news: I edited, I went to two stores. I finished this book. I could have spent some time working on the trailer, but it looked like the sky was going to open up any minute, and I didn't want to get the tools all out, so I did other things. Big List is still at 73 items with 26 crossed off, leaving 47 to go in 51 days. Tomorrow is a road trip. Stay tuned.

See Two Different Uses for Flour