These three books are my most recent foray into the world of bookbinding. The leather wasn't quite right for the taller one, and completely wrong for the one on its side (that one should have been covered with binder's vellum). They were quite the challenge, and I'll discuss each one in turn below.

The inspiration books can be found in J.A. Szirmai's "The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding," the Limp Binding chapter (mostly 16th century bindings).

This was the first book I attempted, as seen from the back spine.  I had some problems during the final construction phases.  It actually went together quite well building the book-block, but at the final phase, I found the size might have been a bit too small, and I got the decorative stitching of the bands just a bit too tight.  See the book-block construction below.

As you can see, I didn't get the strips lined up well at all, and you can also see how the cover leather holds itself away from the pages near the spine because I cut off those bookblock strips (sigh).

Below is the diagram from Szirmai, and also an existing 16th century ledger with this type of binding.  To sew the bookblock onto the cover, I didn't make tackets (individual knots) like Szirmai recommended, but rather used a single thread with two needles for each strip, did continuous stitches for each band, and tied it off inside the cover.  

Finished book is 4.5" X 5¾, with 12 gatherings/quires of four pages each.

The next book this is similar to this ledger binding is based on the Brut Chronicles, circa 1425.  The main difference seems to be that the leather is a bit heavier, possibly even glued to pastepaper, and tooled.  Since I don't know enough about tooling yet, I just used plain leather.  I found this image on line at:                                      http://www.textmanuscripts.com/images_manuscripts/photo_701.jpg

The description of the book says it is an illuminated manuscript in Middle English.  The binding is "mid-16th century brown leather wallet binding, paneled with triple fillets and rolled in blind, three bands attached with white leather strips cross-laced on covers and twisted and knotted on the spine, strap with stamped and engraved bras clasp (lacking catch, worn and restored)."

This book is also based on a 16th century one from Szirmai's book. It was supposed to be done with binder's vellum for the cover, but I didn't want to use the lamb parchement I have just to try it out (but intend to try my next one with it, after all).  This shows the book from the spine.  The brown leather wasn't very stiff, so I put a layer of PVA on the suede side of it, let that dry, then glued it to the cream leather with more PVA so that it stayed all in one place as I did the stitching.  I had a difficult time with the transition stitches (the chain/kettle stitches at the ends of the spine), I need to put one more hole to get it right, as I didn't read the directions correctly.  I also didn't bring the flap over enough, so it is a bit shorter than it should be.  (See original below).   My book is 7¼" X 5½", with 12 gatherings/quires.

This image shows how the flap is supposed to look and how it connects to the buttons on the spine.  This particular book has a thin beechwood spine, with lead buttons.  It is 8½" X 6¾".   You can just about see the transition chain stitches at the head and tail of the spine... this book has no other exterior stitching on the spine.