How often do I take the opportunity to teach others cool projects? Almost never! But I’m trying to change that by inviting family and friends over to play. On Thursday morning I called my big sister in Eugene and invited her to come create a book of her choice. My sister is a quilter and maker of anything in fabric or fiber (weaving, crochet, etc..) but she had never tried her hand with books. After showing her a bunch of book style examples, she decided to create a 20 page album with hemp-leaf binding (Asa noha toji). I worked right along side her with the same design. It took us about 5 hours to complete. Below are some images of her working and the finished books.
Here is the happy participant ready to work.
Our basic tools:
Mitering corners:
Finished front and back cover. Beautiful paper choice Kim! She was so happy to have such a wide choice of paper to choose from. Yes, I’m a paper junkie and she is a fabric junkie.
A happy sister with her completed book!
Our books-
Sticks, Stones, and Paper Stew Blog 
At first I thought you were off to the horse racing track.
Plug 麻の葉綴じ into google for some other examples. I was intrigued to learn that its called that because the seam (threading?) is in the shape of hemp leaves.
Now how does one actually say it correctly in Japanese? I probably screwed up on the spacing between the letters. Nice to have friends be able to correct my Japanese!
Asa (麻) means hemp.
No (の) is the possessive, like an apostrophe mark (‘).
Ha (葉) is leaf.
Toji （綴じ）is binding.
In Japanese, no spaces are inserted between words. I was able to get it the way you wrote it. It’s not always easy to figure out Japanese written in roman characters.
You would say it asa-no-ha-toji flatly, with little or no emphasis on any one syllable. “a” is never pronounced like in “apple”; it’s like in “all.” “no” is like our “no”. “ha” is like “hah” in laughing. “toji” would be like toe – gee, except each syllable is short, not drawn out. There are 5 syllables, so it would be like saying 5 eighth notes on a piano. Each syllable gets the same amount of time.
Well, you asked 🙂
Excellent! Just what I was hoping you could provide.
Thanks so much Chris!