i would like to make an artist book, but i don't know how to bind it. basically what i want to do is sew it. are there any techniques or anything? i'm not quite sure how to explain what i want, so forgive me if this is all garbled and confusing. =P

hmmmm, are there any techniques for binding artists' book? About a zillion.

What are you trying to sew? Paper? Fabric? Wood? On a machine? Keith Smith has several books on non-adhesive bindgins. Cover to Cover is another good example. Maybe go to the library or B&N and see what's there.

I guess for an artists' book the best way to choose a binding is to determine which one best supports the message of your book. So what's it about?

well, it would be paper.... and i found this old hardcover fairy tales book that the actual book fell out of it and now there's just the cover, and i thought that would be neat to use. as to what the book would be about, well, me.... *shrug* i think i have a good idea now how to bind the pages, (my friend found some links) but i don't know how i would connect that the the cover i mentioned earlier.

if you want an easy way, you could just tear off the spine, so you have a front cover and back cover. Cut paper to fit between the covers. Drill three holes in the covers and through the paper. "Bind" with something as simple as metal rings, ribbons, etc. That is the quickest way to bind it.

So actually you are adding blank pages to the cover?

I would remove the spine, if you haven't already and do some kind of exposed spine sewn binding like coptic or any of it's variations. I think it would suit fairytales well since it's a really old technique.

Or, you could leave the spine on and do a longstitch binding and add stuff like beads or whatever as you sew.

There are many options. I would say just look through a bunch of bookbinding bokks and find one you like.

what is longstitch binding? and how do you do it? i'd prefer to leave the binding on...

I wanted to try something similar, and found this site (haven't tried it yet)

http://www.sheilasummers.com/bookbinding/index.html

Go to a library/bookstore and look through any bookbinding book and you will see what the various bindings can look like.

Like ursonate said, the Keith Smith books are great. Very informative. I think that someone here gave good directions once before, too if you check the srchives. It may have been too long ago, though. grayseed? doesn't she have a website about book binding?

this website was designed by a glitter girl and it has great detailed instructions with photos, you could make the inside part (pages) and then glue them into your original binding.

http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/d/r/drv1913/0204.html

jt