Instructions for Making an Itty Bitty Altered Embroidery Thread Bobbin Book

Since some people were interested in making their own itty bitty altered embroidery bobbin book, I decided I would post some how to instructions.  I’ll also add this post to my tutorials section.

To begin the book, you’ll need embroidery thread bobbins (the white paper things shaped like spools of thread), scissors, gel medium, an old paintbrush, a ruler, binding material (waxed nylon lacing), bamboo skewers and some embellishing materials. I’m using images, a quote and a rubber stamp.

To make the front and back cover thicker and stronger than the inside pages, I glue two embroidery thread bobbins together. I use gel medium as my adhesive.

I mark my holes on my covers using my ruler. I put a hole every 1/4″ with a hole at each end of the wider part of the bobbin and a hole in each corner of the narrower section. For the covers, I punch holes on both sides of the bobbin.

I’m using a quote for my itty bitty book, I count the number of words or phrases I have and decide how many pages I want to create. I punch the holes in each page just like I did with the covers. The inside pages will only have holes on one side.

I used my ink pad to put a background color on my covers. I just press the bobbin into the ink pad.

I’m going to leave the insides of my covers plain and stamp the outside using a rubber stamp and some green ink.

I put the ink on my stamp and press the cover into the ink.

This is what the stamp looks like when it is fully embellished.

I’m using waxed nylon lacing to bind my book together. To make it easier to slip the lacing through the holes, I cut the end of the lacing at a diagonal to form a point (like a needle).

I just start sewing with an overhand stitch.

When I’m done I have two ends that I need to tuck back into the inside of the cover.

I tuck the ends behind some stitches on the inside cover. You can use just a dab of glue underneath the ends to keep them from coming undone.

I used walnut ink to stain the front and back of each page.

I embellished the pages before I assembled my itty bitty book.

I embellish all my pages and covers and stack them in order.

Because the bobbin has the wider edges at the top and bottom, I need to put in a spacer to make the pages turn without bending the bobbins. I use pieces of a bamboo skewer as a spine for my book. I mark the length, cut the bamboo and sand it down. I’m going to use two pieces of skewer for this book.

The bamboo is a little too light for my book, so I color it by rolling it across my ink pad.

I sew the book in the same way I put the edging on my covers. I just thread the nylon through each of the pages and covers. I do this loosely because I’m going to slip my skewers in after I finish sewing. You have to be very patient at this step.

The waxed nylon lacing works well because it slips through the pages easily. I pull the lacing tight against the skewers.

I take the ends of the lacing and tie them together at the spine. I add a bit of gel medium to the lacing and skewers to make sure everything stays in place.

Here’s my book all laced up and ready to go.  I didn’t poke out the holes in the bobbins.  If you’d like to hang your book, you can poke out the holes.

As you can see the pages turn easily with the skewer spine in the back.

I just did this project with couple of friends yesterday.  They both did a totally different design from mine.  I think that’s great.  I like it when people take a craft project and make it their own.  Their books were much more colorful.   If they post their creations, I’ll add their link. 

One of them decided to sew the book together at the top of the bobbins.  If you do this, you probably won’t need to worry so much about bending pages and adding spacers to the spine. 

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