At todays meeting we all had a go at the multi piece cover with accordion book structure that had been featured on the Byopia Press in December.

To make the book you need 4 pieces of square origami paper for the cover (we used 6″/15cm squares) and a long sheet of cartridge paper to fold into an accordion for the insert.

To make the cover –

Take one sheet and cut it in half (the chiyogami pattern paper as pictured above). Fold the short ends to the middle to form a square and crease. Do the same with the other half. These two pieces will be used to lock the structure together at the end.

Next take two sheets and fold in half without creasing to find the center, mark the center point by pinching lightly. Use this center point to fold in the four corners and crease (as per the red sheet in the lower left corner of the photo). Take the second sheet and do the same. These are the front and back cover pieces

Take the last sheet of paper to form the spine by measuring it against the front cover. Cut the sheet into a rectangle the same height as the cover. Find the center of the short side and mark with a pinch. Fold the two corners down to form a triangular point and then make a crease on the line formed by the triangles (as per the red sheet at the bottom left corner of the image above). Leave the cover at this point until the insert is complete.

To make the insert –

Cut a long strip of paper the height of the cover and 16 times the length (you may also join sheets together with glue or stitching to acheive the correct length).

Fold the strip into an accordion by folding in half, then each half in half and so on until you have a concertina the same size as your cover.

Fold the first and last page of the concertina – corner to corner – and cut both so you are left with a triangular tab at each end (as per the image above). The insert is now complete.

To finish the book –

Take your spine piece and measure the thickness of the accordion insert from the creased line at the end of the triangular fold. Crease a parallel line to create the width necessary for the spine.

Measure half the width of the cover from this line and then cut off any excess. Fold the points in as you did with the first side of the spine. ( There are some good diagrams of this on the Byopia Press website).

Place the front and back covers with the open points towards you and take the spine with the open points facing away from you. Wrap the spine triangles round one of the side triangles of the cover and secure by locking the triangles in place with the folded half piece of paper by tucking the folds behind the side points. Do the same with the back cover.

Turn the cover over so you can see the slots to either side of the spine and tuck the two accordion tabs in these to either side. The book is now complete.