Journaling: Coptic Stitch Edition

I finally did a coptic stitch journal yesterday during my son's naptime! I found a fabulous video tutorial on youtube.com - you can see it here. I kept rewinding each part over and over, and I was practically plastered to my computer monitor trying to see how to do it. My thread and needle were falling all over the place- I'm sure it would have been quite comical to watch. Nevertheless, I finished it and was happy with how my first one turned out!

I cut chipboard covers and inside pages to size (3 x 10 flat, 3 x 5 finished size). I covered the chipboard covers with fabric (fabric glue does WONDERS) and graph paper, and then punched holes with a jig (punching guide I made out of chipboard- this helps all holes to be evenly spaced and keeps all holes in the signatures uniform) and added eyelets. I then used the jig to punch holes in the signatures. After completing all of this, I used the video to learn how to do the stitching.

I am looking forward to making more of these and perfecting them- they are such great journals/notebooks/sketchbooks, as they lay flat when open. Much better than having to fight the pages to ke from closing.