Japanese Stab Binding

by Tammy Jackson (Jul 17, 2006)

I love making my own hand-made books and journals. Japanese stab binding is yet another technique for binding loose pages together into a book. In Japanese stab binding, the front of the book should look the same as the back except for the place where you tie off the thread.

The following instructions are for basic Japanese stab binding. Once you learn this technique, you can branch out and learn other fancier stitches such as hemp-leaf binding, tortoise-shell binding, or Kangai binding. All are variations on the basic stab-binding technique.

Supplies

heavy cardstock or handmade paper (for the front cover)
text-weight paper or cardstock (for the inside pages)
chipboard or heavy cardstock (for the back cover)
two or three binder clips, large enough to clamp the thickness of your book
an anywhere hole punch, Japanese screw punch, awl, or drill (with a fine bit)
twine, ribbon, waxed linen, silk cord, etc. (for sewing the book together)
needle with an eye large enough to thread with your chosen binding

Instructions

Cut your front cover, back cover, and inside pages all the same size. This technique can be used on both full-sized and miniature books. The hole spacing is what matters.
Clamp the intended left (bound) edge of your book together with the binder clips. Be sure the edges line up perfectly.
Mark four holes equally spaced at an equal distance from the clamped edge of the book.
Punch or drill 1/8" to 1/4" holes at the places you have marked.
Thread the needle with a generous amount of the binding thread, ribbon, or twine. The length should be three times the circumference of your book (circling around from top to bottom).
Begin at an interior hole and feed the needle up from the back of the book to the front. Pull the needle all the way through that hole, loop around the spine, and up again through that same hole. Pull the thread tight while holding onto the tail of the thread. Be sure to leave a generous tail of about 2 inches.
Move to the next hole at the end of the book. Sew down through the hole from the book front to the back of the book. Loop around the spine, and go back down through that same hole. Again, pull the thread tight.
Loop around the end (not the spine) of the book and then back through the hole you used in step 7. This will create a stitch perpendicular to the one you made in step 7.
Sew back into your original starting hole.
Continue sewing back to the other end of the book just as you did in steps 6 through 9.
You will end up back where you first began sewing. Anchor your stitching using the needle and binding thread by tying a knot with both tails of your thread.
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To make your work look clean and neat, push the tails into the binding hole to hide the tails.