Hand-Stitched Leather Journal

Materials:
6″x12″ piece of leather
36″ waxed thread (assorted colors)
15″ 1/4″ elastic band
30″ 1/4″ leather strap
16 sheets of paper

Tools:
scissors
pencil
ruler
leather awl and hammer

 

You will use the 16 pieces of 8.5×11 copy paper to make 42 folded leaves. You’ll need to cut these down into two pieces that measure 7.5″ by 5.5″. The best way to do this is cut off a 1″ strip from the long side, and then cut the remaining piece in half.

If you wold rather have longer sheets of paper and less leather wrapping around your journal you can skip cutting 1″ off the ends.

After you trim off the 1″ strip from the long side, cut the remaining piece in half. These two halves will be 5.5″ by 7.5″ each.

Rotate the resulting 5.5″ by 7.5″ (or 5.5″x8.5″) pieces so the are in landscape orientation. Each piece needs to be folded in half, making a book fold. Make sure this fold is sharp and crisp. Repeat this step for all 42 pieces of paper.

You will need to mark 6 holes in each piece of paper so that they can be punched and stitched in the binding. The holes will be located 1/2″, 1″ and 2″ from the top and 1/2″, 1″ and 2″ from the bottom. Before you punch holes in the paper, make sure the marks you’ve made line up with the existing punch marks in the leather.
You need to make sure that the holes you’ve marked on the paper line up exactly with the holes marked on the leather. This is absolutely crucial to being able to successfully stitch the binding.
It may be helpful to fold the signature of papers inside out and line the marks up with the marks on the leather.
The holes 1/2″ from the top and 1/2″ from the bottom don’t have any corresponding marks on the leather. Just do your best to split the distance evenly from the 1″ mark and the edge of the paper.

Using a hammer and a awl, you’ll need to punch holes in the paper. Its best to do this one signature at a time. Make sure to use a piece of scrap material underneath the paper so you don’t damage the surface below.

At this point, you should have four signatures of 8 sheets of paper each.

Since you have the hammer and awl out, go ahead and punch holes in the leather for the binding stitching. There are four columns of four holes. Using the hammer and the nail, carefully punch the sixteen holes in the leather.

This video explains how to stitch the four signatures of paper into your leather cover.
Once you’ve stitched up the binding, you’re ready to think about the closure options.

Option 1 is the 1/4″ leather strap. This is designed to attach to the flap and wrap around the journal and tie into itself.

To install this strap, simply tie a knot onto one end of the strap and thread it through the hole located on the cover overlay.
Option 2 uses the 1/4″ elastic band to loop around the journal to hold it closed. The band can either be looped from left to right or top to bottom, depending on your preference.
To install the band, make a loop in the elastic and tie a knot. Make sure that the length of the loop is either long enough to stretch top to bottom or short enough to reach around the side of the journal. The tied loop will push through the inside of the hole in the cover overlay.

Congratulations, you’ve completed your journal. We hope you’ve enjoyed it and can’t wait to see how you’ve done. In the spirit of sharing with the community and inspiring others, we’d love for you to take some photos or video and share on social media. Just use the hashtag #acumakerlab. Feel free to send them to Maker Lab Director, Chai Green, at chai.green@acu.edu and we’ll share them as well.

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