I’m sure there’s a specific name for this binding, but I don’t know what it is. It’s basically a pamphlet stitch with the threads outside crossing over on a diagonal to a different section, forming this cross-hatch pattern.

The pages here are Arches Cover 250 gsm, torn down from 22″ x 30″ sheets into pages 11″ wide by 7-1/2″ high. Since the Arches Cover starts out with natural or tear deckles on all four edges, all of the pages have a soft deckle on all sides. I thought this would give it a more rustic look but it actually turned out quite elegantly in combination with the decorative papers on the cover. There are four sections, each with four folios, for a total of 64 pages. Since this is a photo album, I did a test to see how much swelling would occur if there were photos on each leaf, and made sure the spine was wide enough to accommodate the change in width.

The inside of the case uses a small repeating gold print (Chiyogami paper from The Paper Place.

The outside of the case uses a different Chiyogami print—can’t remember where I got this one—with a shiny, slubbed Japanese bookcloth. I like the way the diamonds formed by the stitching on the spine emulate the diamonds in the pattern on the cover.

I’ve experimented with hard cover long-stitch bindings before as sketch books, and there is not much difference between the sketch books and the photo albums except for compensating for swelling in the book block. It’s fun to try different stitches on the spine, so I’ll probably be experimenting a bit more with these.