I really did get your comment re: taking me up on my recommendation in my inbox and go, "Whaattt? I told someone to try book-binding?" but I figured, it had to be because you must've said you enjoyed hobbies with certain characteristics that bookbinding has.

I have sooo many needles. For this binding, I did use a curved needle. The curved needle was great for one part of the stitch, not so great for the other. However, maybe it could be improved upon by changing the spacing of the - whatever you call the holes in the paper and cover that you use to stitch them together. Generally I'm using tapestry needles. The problem is that you can't go too big with the needles either or else they rip giant holes in your paper too.

I had spare jeans that were worn out and really wanted to use them for something. I'd been thinking about doing a little bookbinding just because I had all the supplies and loads of paper left over from last year, and realized I had tons of cardboard lying about in the form of "guilty cat playground" boxes. It all came together really nicely! I spent $0 making this book. (Acquiring all the supplies last year is another story.)

I do think there's a lot to learn and lots of room for improvement. I am going to upgrade some tools (my binding thread was a pain, for instance) and try again and see how it goes. My tip, which I did this time around, is to just fold your folios and press them way ahead of time. Right now I have about 2-3 more books' worth of folios sitting under cookbooks waiting for me to be ready to try again.

I confess I don't really hate it as much as my post probably makes it look...But then again, this time I made one book. Last year I was churning out copies and it was very tedious, slow, and I made lots of aggravating mistakes trying to substitute tools/buy nice fancy supplies that then didn't work.

Also thanks! I'm glad you enjoy. I definitely felt I was channeling you a little bit!