I heart headbands.

Absolutely. I have an unfortunate tendency to fall down on finishing, especially with books. After all, once the basic structure is done, nothing else really matters, right? Well, no. But you know that already. When I was learning how to make case bindings, we used paper headbands and glued-in bookcloth headbands. Boring. When I tried a sewn silk headband, though, that was a different matter entirely. A headband makes the spine of a book feel more solid, and a good headband really can make the difference between a merely acceptable book and an excellent one.

It's one of those details a lot of people don't really notice if it's there, but certainly notice the lack if it's not.


The Byzantine style of headband is, at least on the surface, a complex piece of sewing. Oh, it is a pretty complex piece of sewing. But I've been handsewing for a long time, and I've got a high tolerance for detail work.

This particular book is pretty small -- the boards are a mere 4" x 6", which helped keep the headbands manageable. It's a good thing, too: not only did I do some of the sewing outside, in a stiff breeze, but I didn't have any linen thread coarser than what I used. When I get to the larger book, I'm going to have to invest in another thread.


I didn't think quite as hard about the spine lining as I probably should have, but it seems to have worked out all right. Next time, I need to find a material that isn't so prone to fraying, but muslin was what I had readily available.

In any case, after the first few wraps, it's pretty straightforward. I had a couple of what I consider major problems, but I imagine the casual viewer won't notice. I'll try to make the cores more even next time, either by using more glue or by getting a better quality of cord. Given that the coverage on the second headband is much better than the first, I think I've already worked out the issues with wrap tension. These are not the most flattering pictures I've ever taken - I can see all of the flaws in the sewing far too clearly. On the other hand, it's quite the motivation to do better next time, and I've learned a valuable lesson: there's a reason these are traditionally done with an unbleached linen thread.


Here's where the first massive flaw in my plan reared its ugly head: I decided not to bother rounding the outside spine edges of the boards. It didn't seem like a huge deal, and I didn't think it was structurally significant. Turns out it's remarkably difficult to get the headbands to turn a corner at the spine, though (you can see the bare corners clearly in the second image). Having a curve on the board there means that the whole object flows much better when it's finished. On the other hand, it's not like I don't have another set of these boards to work on. (The question will be whether or not I can afford to get more.)

But we carry on. After all, once the headbands are on, the book is practically finished.