Above is a leather journal I bound today in this old German style, following instructions from the Keith A. Smith "Non-Adhesive Binding, Books Without Paste or Glue, Volume 1". You can see this book and all of the other ones on the Keith Smith site.
As you can see it has exposed long vertical stitches on the spine, (and here I have employed one of the variations by altering the length of the stitches) and chain stitches along the head and tail. The leather that I have used in this instance is Reindeer leather from Shepherds - their online shop is useful for ordering all sorts of bookbinding goodies.
I did cheat a little because I wanted to add some really nice endpapers. This beautiful french paper was marbled by Sylvie Hournon - isn't it just gorgeous? It has a lovely feel to it and a wonderful density of shading. I just love it. Anyway, I had to glue that in place.
Finally I added the black leather cord and the shiny red glass bead - perhaps I was influenced by Rudolf there :-)
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