I have been harassed within an inch of my life to provide a custom journal for a friend (love ya, Stacy!)…so here it is. I had wanted to do some weird sewing combination but the lack of access to a drill press makes most of my experiment ideas difficult and impractical. Maybe I’ll figure out how to get my hands on one someday.
This style was called ‘Japanese ledger binding’ by the professor who taught me…only I’ve not had success in finding many other examples online. It’s pretty simple, which is why I added Stacy’s nickname to the top.
becca making faces 
Hello Becca, I have been browsing through your blog and have been very impressed by your bookbinding efforts. I have largely self taught myself bookbinding, but Keith Smith feels like an old friend after the amount of time I have spent with his books!
I have not come across the ledger binding before – from the images above (many thanks for posting big images!) I can understand the cover structure, but cannot see any indication of how the book block itself is bound. I am intrigued. I hope that you will shed some light upon this…
Great work!
Chris
Thanks, Chris! It’s actually pretty simple. The book block has three holes punched underneath the small strip, and is sewn with a figure eight, begun from the bottom middle. The knot needs to be smashed into the hole as much as possible, or the board will wobble. The green paper in the journal above is one of my own additions to the typical structure; it covers the spine edge and makes it look cleaner.