Binding the The Silk Route

It's really good to keep records of what materials and methods are used - for your own reference and also to look reasonably intelligent when people say "What sort of ink did you use?"
Throughout the screening process I took photos and made notes as it's a fantastic record for next time (ha-ha). I love making books and here was ready-made content to use instead of making blank books.

The Silk Route in the making:

I wanted a silk cover using the trial runs of the 100 Greatest Mathematicians.
I decided to bind over tapes which works well for sections of different thicknesses because of the photos and fabric samples. (Sorry I only have photos of the cover construction, but the book has an open decorated spine which is tea-dyed).

To make the silk-over-cardboard padded but not spongey, I glued felt to the covers with wood glue after cutting and piercing the holes for the binding.

 The fabric is first stitched in the middle, then you alternate with ties on either side of it. Each tie is long enough to do two stitches across and to be tied in a criss-cross. I used ordinary sewing thread which I doubled.
Once the long sides are taut, start in the middle of the short sides and continue until only the corners are left.

The corners are "pulled in" and stitched. Here is a rather fuzzy close-up, but I think you can figure it out.
I made narrow tapes out of the khaki fabric from Theo's Wheel and first stitched the sections together over the tapes, then joined the tapes to the cover by stitching them onto it on the inside. Fiddly, but it worked..

This photo from way-back-when will show what an exposed spine looks like (top book). In this book the tapes were threaded into the cover. (Apologies, I never took a photo of The Silk Route spine at the time and the book is in Sunderland on display right now.) Also the stitching is crossed and on The Silk Route, I did parallel stitches.
Once the covers were stitched to the sections, I glued a nice heavy piece of Khadi paper as a lining to cover the threads and the tapes. Khadi is quite forgiving of lumps and bumps and so it looks fine.
You'll get a glimpse of the inside tomorrow.

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