Quilting swatch book

June 10: Cloth Book

Quilting, according to my wife, is the art of cutting up a big piece of fabric into little pieces and then sewing them back together into a big piece again.

With this book, you can keep track of those types of fabric by saving a swatch of each with the manufacturer’s info. When you want to make something to match that quilt, you can go back and find that pattern again. If it’s not at the quilt store, then you might have to buy it online. Without the pattern name and maker, you may never find the material again. It can also be used to find complimentary fabrics, since some manufacturers make little modifications to the pattern or color to create whole “families” of fabric patterns.

The book itself is made out of what looks and feels like heavy felt. Each sheet is about 3/32” thick. so you can pin or glue a piece of fabric to the page without it tearing everything up. I don’t think you can tear this paper anyway. The book pages have been hand sewn together, then glued for extra reinforcement. Since the pages are so thick, I wasn’t able to stack them up and sew them like I do when I make smaller books, so each page had to be individually sewn. A strip of cloth holds all the pages together and connects the paper block to the covers.

This book deviates quite a bit from other, more traditional bindings that I’ve done. The thick paper makes the book a lot more interesting to make. I kind of got out of bookbinding because I hadn’t been pushed to make anything unique. Now that I’ve made this, though, I’m back in the groove. I think this heavy paper would make a good kids book, too.

This project was not a one day after work project, unfortunately. I could have done it in one day on the weekend, but I had to stretch this out to 2 evenings because I needed to wait for the glue to dry.

Hand-bound books aren’t as easy to give away as jam and soap, though. A bar of soap might cost me $2 to make, and a jar of jam $2.50, but these books can cost anywhere from $30 to $50 to make. That’s not a big deal, really, because if it’s a gift then it’s worth it. I can’t leave a bunch of books on the table for people to take home as party favors, though. That means practicing requires me to make a bunch of books for myself or making them and selling them. I like the hobby, but I wonder if it’s worth it to turn it into a job. I won’t get better at it unless I sell these or I bind my own personal library. Either of those outcomes would be cool.