Hmm. I wonder if working with a thicker thread would help with the wholes created by a thicker needle or make the problem worse? I'll have to ask my wife. She's into crafts too so she might know. Yeah. I can totally see that. It's probably frustrating as hell to have to wait, especially with crafts. A lot of the time, especially if it's something that is difficult or laborious, if you lack drive (not saying that you do personally, just people in general) you need to feel inspired and motivated in the moment to do it. Having to wait obviously interrupts that emotional momentum. So yeah, doing anything ahead of time can be a huge help. I think, like I'm feeling with the decoupage, the more you do it, the easier it'll become, the more you'll enjoy it. No rush of course, but I'd love to see you post some pics of some finished books down the road. If they're anything like this one with the jeans, I bet they're awesome.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 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.
I am having ideas for cool different ways to do covers. Like I said, I already have made signatures enough for 2 more books, so I think I will definitely end up with a few more books. It does take time in general but I'll post 'em when I finish 'em - Pubski will probably be a good place for it, unless I learn a whole lot more and book-binding proves to merit its own follow-up post. I'll be honest, this book doesn't look as good in person as its "finished" photo - I took it from a flattering angle which conceals, for instance, that I somehow mis-measured the front board and an inch of sky-blue paper is essentially sticking up over it - but I'm thinking I can continue to tweak it and fix some of the hidden issues I am seeing. For instance, I just need a good paper cutter or a lot of patience and I can trim the pages down to the right size. There are some small problems which I don't think I'll really be able to fully fix on this book, but I'm optimistic I can apply what I've learned and continue to finesse to avoid them on the next go-around. Then again, I did just break my "good" bottle of glue this morning... :(