How To Sew a Multi Section Book “Coptic” style

This structure works well when you want to leave the spine exposed as the stitching is decorative. If you can sew neatly and with even tension you can leave the spine unglued – this makes a delicate binding style for light-weight books without hard covers. If you do want to add a hard cover it is best to attach them with the sewing – see Helen in the workshop for more info about this or have a look at the links below.

Please note there is no sound on this video so please use “CC” for caption instructions.

Who were the Copts?

There are many variations to this sewing structure. You may find some of these helpful:

Coptic Sewn Sketchbook with Board Attachment

coptic binding

A series of short movies demonstrating how to make a codex book with lots of pages.

For captions – click on “CC” at the bottom of the screen.

Multi Section Part 1 – Sewing 

Multi section Part 2 – Glueing up the Spine

Multi section part 3 – Adding Endpapers

Multi section Part 4 – Trimming the Pages

Please note you must have a H&S Induction to use the Ream Cutter shown in this video

Multi section Part 5 – Make a Hard Cover

Cut Two Boards With the Board Chopper

Please note you must have a H&S Induction to use the Board Chopper shown in this video

Multi section Part 6 – Sticking Pages To the Cover