When most of us think of a book, this is what's in our head: a book of many pages, bound in hard covers. We'll teach you how to make just that. The technical name for it is a Case Binding.

In this in-house workshop, you'll learn how to fold and create signatures (gatherings of pages), how to make a template for punching sewing stations in those signatures, how to create your text block by hand-sewing those signatures, and how to consolidate the spine. Next, you'll learn how to build a case, fully covered in book cloth. Finally, you'll learn how to bring both elements together (how to "case-in" your book) and you'll go home at the end of the workshop with your own full cloth hardcover journal. The finished book will be a most pleasing size: about 10 1/4" tall x 8 3/8" wide with enough blank pages to last you a good long time –– depending on how often you journal, this book will probably last you for many months or perhaps more than a year. And when your journal is complete, you'll have the skills you need to make a new one. (Or, just come back again to Convivio Bookworks for another Case Binding workshop.)

No prior experience in bookbinding is necessary... though it certainly is helpful. If you've never made a book and you want to make this one, we think you'll do just fine. No matter your level of experience, here's what we find with case bindings: there are a lot of steps, and it's very likely, even for experienced bookbinders, that something may go awry in the process. These are handmade books, and with handmade items, perfection is not a goal.

Instructor John Cutrone is a writer and co-proprietor of Convivio Bookworks. He is the author of the Convivio Book of Days, a literary lifestyle blog encouraging us to live the ceremony of each day, and the Director of the Jaffe Center for Book Arts at Florida Atlantic University Libraries. He is a graduate of the MFA in the Book Arts Program at the University of Alabama.