Day 43-Route 66-Coptic Binding

I should have posted this book yesterday. I did finish it then, but because it is partially glued, it needed to spend some time under weights so it would lie flat and I could photograph it.

This idea sprang from a Route 66 vinyl sticker we sell in our store. I used the stickers on the front and back and it also provided the template for cutting out the boards for the covers and the pages. Now that was tedious! I kept thinking "Die Cutter. Die Cutter!" first I tried cutting the pages with scissors, but they were just plain ragged. I finally ended up using an Xacto knife and cutting them in piles of 4-5 pages at a time. As a result, the edges are not perfectly uniform as they would be using a die cutter. But they're really not too bad, if I do say so myself.

The binding for this book is the single-needle Coptic stitch. It's a binding where the stitching is exposed on the spine. It enables the book to lie completely flat when opened. This little book measures roughly 3 1/2" square.