Tutorial: Let’s make Book Cloth
Turn cotton fabric into book covers.
Hey Bookbinders!
This month I’m sharing a quick tutorial on how to make your own book cloth. It’s a great DIY way of making your own book cloth for hard or soft cover books.
For this tutorial I used cotton fabric, but go ahead and try other fabrics too. I prefer to use thin fabric so that turning corners for hard cover books isn’t too difficult on your hands. Linen might be trickier, but if you try it, let us know how you get on.
A History of Book Cloth
Up until the 1830s, books were covered with leather or vellum. Around this time cloth came into use to cover books with paper labels added to the spine. Cloth was cheaper than leather and stronger than paper, so it was perfect for book production. Early examples used dark colours like maroons and greys and blues. You can also date books in this way, which is fascinating.
After the gold rush of 1849, gold blocking was introduced to the covers, with silver also used, but quickly abandoned due to silver damaging the books. In the early nineteenth century dust jackets were introduced, originally to protect the cloth, but later used to advertise the books with easy to reproduce designs, which is what we see on many hard cover novels today!
One of my favourite things to do is to take off a dust jackets to see the cloth underneath, many of which are embossed which we totally miss when we keep the jacket on. Try it and let me know what you find!
If you’re in the membership you can go right ahead and watch the tutorial below. I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Share them in the subscriber chat so everyone can see your lovely books. A list of what you need is below the tutorial.