I am in love with endbands. No, really. It was necessary for me to sleep last night, so I had to quit but I didn’t want to.
Also, did you know that if you hunch over something for six hours, you can potentially pinch a nerve and then your chin will become numb? Neither did I.
Anyway. Here’s the endband I’m shooting for:
(From The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding by J.A. Szirmai)
I want that chevron pattern, but so far I’m getting used to the mechanics of it all.
First, I sewed the quires together thusly:
This is the cleanest sewing job I’ve done yet.
Then, I stitched a leather cord to the top of the bookblock, and using two needles each with a different thread color, I proceeded to weave in the colored portion of the endbands:
I’m not doing this the correct way, I realize. That is, the mechanics are correct, but I’m not using the right technique necessary to get the chevron pattern I’m shooting for. I’m not too concerned about this. I think I know what I’m doing wrong and will correct it. I also think that I need one cord per quire, as the two cords I’ve got make the sewing bunchy.
Here’s another view:
You can see the progress I’ve made from where I started (right) to where I’m at (left). It’s getting better all along.
At any rate, I’ve got two endbands on this book, so I will have more practice.
And in the meantime (thanks to Master Lorenzo), I’ve discovered how to do the flange cover attachment bit that I couldn’t figure out earlier. I’m moving along nicely.
knitters = angry mob 
YOU ARE A BAD INFLUENCE! I DO NOT NEED ANOTHER TIME-CONSUMING HOBBY! YOU MIGHT BE A LITTLE BIT EVIL.
ok, i feel a little better now, i know better than t fight it, really.
so. cool.
jadi
Thanks!
(That evil thing? Is the goth part of happygoth. I thought you knew! Hee hee.)
What you are doing is incredibly cool. The band thing is awesome. I really do not have the appropriate superlatives to describe how exciting this is.
I would love to learn how to do this once you have figured it out! 😉
Something to think about for documentation. Good pictures like this – that show the steps – would be excellent to include. Primarily because of the layers and how eventually it will all be invisible unless the judge dismantles your finished product – which I believe none of us wants.
Noo… I think dismantling would lead to full-body-tackling, and I think that’s not covered under A&S guidelines. It also might get me barred from A&S forever.
But I will so totally show you how to do it! I have no idea how the chevron pattern works, but I’ve got another endband to practice on…
Thanks for the documentation advice! I had intended on putting process + photos in the expanded documentation, should somebody want to see that part. I am so relieved that this is not so hard as I imagined. Master Lorenzo has been a HUGE help (we’ve been chatting over IM).