Years ago, my mother sent me some beautiful paper she had made. I wasn’t sure what to do with it at the time as it just wasn’t meant for letter writing, but when I rediscovered the paper about a month ago it was so obvious what I needed to do. It was time to make a book. I couldn’t use the pages for signatures, and the paper I had chosen for the covers was too thick for stab binding. After a bit of thinking, I decided to make an accordion-style book (but it’s also not quite an accordion book).

To begin, I measured and poked six holes along the tops and bottoms of the papers. (I took the photo at night, so apologies for the poor lighting.) Then I picked out some contrasting embroidery thread from my stash.

Then I stitched the pages together, leaving a bit of thread between the pages to allow room for folding. First along the top, then the bottom. I applied a tiny bit of super glue to the end knots for extra security.

Next, I made some wheatpaste (heating up one part flour, four parts water) and applied it to the inside of the covers, then affixed the first and last papers. I took two white sheets of paper (to protect the books) and then placed heavy books on top to keep things together and flat while the glue and paper dried.

Once the papers and covers were nicely stuck together, the covers weren’t quite as flat as I liked, so I put the book together and placed a heavy book on top again for several hours.

And done.