I know I'm not the first person to make a handmade book, but this is the first time I've done it and I'm so excited I can hardly stand it! So - aren't y'all lucky! I'm going to bore you with all the details. Well, maybe you won't be TOO bored since you're as crazy about pens, paper, etc. as I am. But not everybody is like us. I just showed my handmade book to my hubby and one of his friends. The friend looked at my book, then looked at my husband and said, "Don't you think she should see a doctor?"

Back to the book - I love the way Moleskine cahiers are put together, but the paper quality is so inconsistent I've quit buying them. Today - after examining a cahier - I decided to try making one out of HP 28# paper. I found these instructions for making a single signature booklet

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~preserve/repair/html/sew.htm

Actually these direction are for removing the staples from a single signature pamphlet and replacing the staples with stitching, but I learned what I needed to know about stitching my little book.

The first thing I did was print light gray lines on both sides of ten sheets of paper. I figured there was no way I could cut the pages the exact size I wanted them to be and have them stay even while I stitched them. So I didn't cut the paper. I stacked the 10 sheets and paper clipped them together. I drew a line down the center of the paper and used a paper piercer to make an odd number of holes, roughly 1/2 inch apart. I did the stitching next. Then I had my hubby help me get a good tight knot tied. I folded it along the stitching and trimmed it to the size I wanted on a guillotine style paper cutter. A small Moleskine cahier is 3.5 inches by 5.5 inches and has 64 pages (counting front and back of each page). My handmade one is 3.5 inches by 8.5 inches (so it will fit in a long envelope) and has 40 pages. It has approximately the same number of square inches of writing space as the small Moleskine.

Here's a picture -

Here's another picture with the cahier open. I cut the threads sort of long. I was afraid if I clipped them too close, the knot would come undone. Maybe it's premature to say this is "a great traveling journal." I don't know if it will hold together as well as the Moleskine cahiers. Time will tell.

Thank you for sharing! (And, inspiring!)

Looks great! You inspired me to try as well ;-)

thanks for sharing! I've been wondering about sewing journals of the size you just did. If you look in my recent "write stuff" thread about postage problems on the travelling journals, you'll see that the PO is claiming $1.14 on one of the journals I've recently sent out (we used to use $.58!!)... One reason may have been that the journal was too thick. Doing it the way you've done would reduce the thickness, if I used the same amount of pages (I usually start with 8-10 sheets of paper, totalling 64-80 "sides"...)

But how is it writing in it, with such a tall page? I imagine some nit-picky people would find it difficult. HDoug writes in the journals sideways, to avoid writing in the "gutter", and this trend has caught on with the rest of the MM08 participants!!! (In fact, I do that now with my personal journal!!!)