TIL I wasted $80 on French linen for book cloth

I bought this fancy linen from a shop in Portland thinking it would make my bindings look high end. First attempt the glue bled through and the weave stretched out of shape. Regular cotton from Michael's works fine for half the price. Anyone else had linen ruin a project like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

elliot_roberts19d ago

Nah, gotta disagree a bit here. French linen is a different beast, you can't just treat it like cotton book cloth. You need to back it with a heat-n-bond or iron-on interfacing first to stabilize the weave, then use a PVA glue that's a little thinner so it doesn't gum up and bleed through. I've done a few covers with a really loose weave linen where I had to size it twice to keep the glue from soaking through, but the final texture and the way the spine flexes is way nicer than any Michael's cotton I've tried. That Portland shop stuff is premium but it's more like a raw material that needs prep, not a ready-to-go cloth.

brooke_taylor4418d ago

Why would anyone go through all that extra work for linen though?

emma9615d ago

Oh god, this hits close to home. I once tried to save money by using a cheap linen bedsheet for a project and spent an entire weekend trying to un-gloop my worktable.