Stitching Sketchbooks

Written By Mark Moran

I don’t buy sketchbooks. I make my own.

Sketchbooks with half decent paper in them are costly. I’m lucky to have access to a vast range of beautiful papers in various weights, shades and surfaces.

The pages of this sketchbook are 118gsm Strathmore Writing Wove. Strathmore Writing paper was introduced in 1920 as written correspondence was booming. It contains 25% cotton, originally sourced from trimmings reclaimed from textile mills.

Strathmore is a beautiful paper for sketching. With pen or pencil but with a soft crayon it simply glides with enough tooth for exquisite texture to the mark making.

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My Process

My process for making my sketchbooks is simple. I take the sheets, add a heavy weight outer sheet and hand stitch them all together with a ruddy big needle. The following shows an A5 sketchbook made from Fedrigoni inner sheets hand stitched with a simple pamphlet stitch to a 540gsm Dark Grey Colorplan cover.

Mark Moran https://www.markmoran.co.uk
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