Embroidery Journal Bound with Coptic Stitch

The embroidery journal is finally put together.

Not a very exciting cover but it works.  I made a front and back cover just slightly larger than my signatures (4 folded pages).  This thing is pretty thick so it looks more wonky in the photos than it really is.

I like the candy cane stripe appearance of the whip stitched edges, I'm rather glad I only did one with blanket stitch.

Here's the bound edge below.  I followed my stitching buddy Cy's advice and used the Coptic stitch.

I watched 3 different videos on how to do the Coptic stitch to bind and the last one was the best for me.  I could see what she was doing, she explained it plainly and did not hurry.  You can find that video here on Musings on Realities blog.

The pages open easy and lay nice and flat.

And the inside stitching is nice and neat.

The one thing I did different from the video tutorial is on each end I actually went back into the folio I was working with, caught a bit of fabric and came back out before adding the next folio.  I ended up with a thinner and wimpier line of stitching if I didn't do that.  It may not work with paper journals but my way worked nicer on this fabric journal.

I also think I may have pulled my stitching too tight on the binding, which again is what you want on a paper journal, maybe not so much on a fabric journal.  My pages are thicker on the outside edges because of the folded under fabric.  A thinner fabric would not have been so much a problem but aida cloth is thick and I was trying to be frugal and use it up.

I am also thinking of adding 2 straps that button onto the outside edge to help keep it together.  I think it would look appropriate as well.  The only other thing left is to print off some instructions and tuck them in the pockets the pages made, but I need to purchase another set of ink cartridges before I do that.

All in all I am well pleased with this project and am really glad I signed up for it.  It will be a while before I commit to something this time consuming again though.  I am looking forward to finishing up some UFOs and WIPs this year.

And check out what the other folks on Tuesday Stitchers made in 2012.