... books do grow up quickly.

Now we're at the final step - so far - covering. I used leather, because ... well, it's traditional. And leather is about the only material tough enough to tolerate how much abuse my notebooks take.

I actually did find my tiny supply of bookbinding leather, but I have another project in mind for that, so I used scraps from an old leather coat. There were only a couple big enough for the book, but that was enough.

One of the things I love about this binding is that it's not necessary to pare the leather down very much. I took off some thickness at the edges, so that the adhesive would hold better, and that was about it. As I recall, we didn't pare the whole thing in the class, either. The coat wasn't exactly a pristine piece of leather, either, so there are some scars and scuffs on the book. I think that's all right, as long as it can handle living at the bottom of my everyday bag for a couple of months.

I started by trimming the leather to size, with pieces that are intended to fold over the headband cores and the boards. The first piece I cut was all kinds of the wrong size. For some reason, I completely neglected to add in the board thickness, which is about a quarter of an inch. Kind of significant. Also a silly mistake, but easy to gloss right over by finding the second piece of leather that was a useful size ...

And then I realized I'd forgotten how to make wheat starch paste. Yup, that's how long it's been. Fortunately, the internet coughed up that information and I managed to make it without burning anything. I think I might need to get a dedicated saucepan for book making, though. There are some other things I want to experiment with that aren't food grade.

I did let the paste cool overnight, and got to finishing the thing the next afternoon. It took a while, even though I felt like I was rushing the entire time ... now, let me tell you, there's a good reason for that. I forgot another key aspect of working with leather. I didn't do much of it, but still, you'd think I would have paid some attention. I neglected to dampen the leather adequately, so the paste dried a whole lot faster than it should have. I figured out the problem quickly enough that nothing had to be completely redone, and next time I'll probably remember to get the leather good and wet.

Now that the book is covered, I have to decide if I want to try blind tooling it. On one hand, I absolutely do - an undecorated Byzantine binding looks a bit naked and weird. On the other hand, the only tool I have to work with is a bone folder, which limits my design options. On the third hand, I want this book to be done, and I'm not sure that garment leather is going to be cooperative about tooling. Ah, well, I should be able to just use it anyway, and decide if I want to embellish it later. Of course, I also have to decide whether or not I'm going to make clasps. Byzantine bindings all have some kind of closure, and I've made the slit-braided style once before. My notes on those really are non-existent, though, so it's going to be a nasty bit of trial and error. I suspect that what's going to happen is I'm going to use the book for a while, decide that I hate it without clasps, and see what I can make. I know I'm going to want them on the bigger book, because I want that one to be perfect. Or at least really freaking awesome.