The Thread That Binds - Design Binding

For The Bone Folder's 2010 Bind-o-rama, the text block chosen was The Thread That Binds. I worked on this design in my book binding class. I decided to sew the text block on raised cords. The signatures were very thick, so I decorated the edge with speckled blue acrylic. The leather I had to work with was a thick, gray, morocco grain. For a color scheme, I decided to go with gray and blue. I sewed the text block with blue thread (so it would show on the exposed cords), and sewed blue and gray end bands. For the boards, I glued pieces of mat board together. This provided me with the thickness I needed to match the leather, and was easily shaped by sanding. (I had to angle the boards to be thinner at the spine, so that book could open easily). I attached these boards to the text block by fraying and pasting out the cord on them.
I pared the leather and cut away the middle with a circle cutter. I also attached this with paste, leaving extra material out at the turn in to construct the head/tail cap. Then I infilled the covers, glued down the paste papers and trimmed the turn ins. For the joint, I pared two strips of the same leather thin and pasted them down, overlapping slighting on the text block and on to the board. When those dried, I rubbed them down flush with a bone folder at the spine, then infilled the boards and cut sheets of gray Roma for the end papers. The board sheet was glued down directly on the covers. The fly sheet however, was glued onto the text block using just a thin bead of PVA along the spine and fore-edge. Finally, I painted the exposed area of the spine to match the paste paper.