Hot take: I think hand-sewing signatures is overrated for most binders

Last month I was at a workshop in Portland and everyone was raving about the 'proper' way to hand-sew signatures onto cords. I tried it for a whole weekend and my tension was all over the place, ended up with a wobbly spine that wouldn't close right. I gave up and glued my signatures into a text block like I normally do, and it came out perfectly flat. The old timers there looked at me like I kicked a puppy. Has anyone else just skipped the fancy stitching and gotten good results with a simple glued spine?

3 comments

3 Comments

diana_west271mo ago

Glue doesn't hold up as well over decades compared to proper sewing though.

terryw671mo ago

Honestly, "looked at me like I kicked a puppy" is the perfect way to describe it. I swear some people treat hand-sewing like it's a holy ritual, and you're out here blaspheming with a glue stick. I tried the whole cord-sewing thing once and ended up with a spine that looked like a roller coaster. Ngl my glued version sat flatter than a pancake at a diner. Maybe the old timers can keep their wobbly cords, I'm sticking with my "blasphemous" glue.

annaw731mo ago

Omg right?? I tried the cord thing once too and my book looked like it had scoliosis or something. Glue gang for life, it's so much faster and honestly nobody's gonna be inspecting my spine anyway lol.