Chapter I
Finding the grain before you cut anything
The first notebook I sewed would not stay open. It snapped shut like a clam whenever I let go of it, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to learn that the problem had been decided before I folded a single sheet. This entry is about grain, the quiet property of paper that governs almost everything else at the table.
First written 26 January 2025 · revised 10 March 2025 · 7 minutes’ reading
What grain is, in plain terms
Machine-made paper is formed on a moving belt, and as the wet fibres settle they tend to line up in the direction the belt is travelling. Once dry, the sheet has a grain: it bends and folds more easily along the fibres than across them, and it swells and shrinks more across them when the air gets damp. You cannot see it in most papers, but you can feel it, and every sheet that goes into a book has one.
For a book, the rule is that the grain should run parallel to the spine. Folded that way, the pages turn easily and the book lies open without being held. The boards, the cloth and the endpapers all follow the same rule, because every layer on the book will try to move a little with the weather, and if they all move in the same direction the book stays flat. If one layer runs the other way, the book warps, usually within a week, and usually in the direction that makes the cover curl away from the pages.
My clamshell notebook had its pages folded against the grain. Each fold was stiffer than it should have been, the spine fought every opening, and the paper had cracked slightly along the fold on the outer sheets. It made a good notebook for shopping lists and a poor one for anything else, and it still lives in the drawer by the cooker doing exactly that.
Three tests at the kitchen table
The first test is the bend. Take a sheet and curve it over gently without creasing, first one way and then the other. It will resist more in one direction. The direction in which it bends easily is the one where the grain runs along the curve, parallel to the edges you are holding together. With a stiff paper the difference is obvious; with a thin one it can be subtle, and I repeat it three or four times before I trust the answer.
The second test is the tear. Tear a small strip off a scrap of the same paper, once in each direction. Along the grain the tear runs cleaner and straighter. Across the grain it wanders and the edge comes out ragged. I only use this on offcuts, because it wastes paper and I would rather not sacrifice a good sheet to settle a question the other tests can answer.
The third test is the damp edge, and it is the one I learned at the evening class. Lightly dampen a strip along one edge of a scrap, then along the adjacent edge. The edge that ripples into small waves is the one running along the grain. The edge that stays smooth and curls gently is running across it. It is the most reliable of the three for board and heavy card, where bending by hand is difficult to judge.
Buying and cutting with the grain in mind
Most of my paper comes as large sheets carried home on the bus, rolled in a tube that has to be kept off the wet floor. Large sheets are usually labelled grain long or grain short, meaning the grain runs along the long edge or the short one. The first job at home is to check that label with a bend test and draw a pencil arrow in one corner, because the label has been wrong at least once and I bound a whole notebook on the strength of it.
The grain on the parent sheet decides how you cut the pages. For a folded leaf with its grain parallel to the spine, the fold has to run along the grain, so the sheet is cut into pieces whose grain runs from head to tail of the finished book. It took me several evenings with a pencil and a scrap to stop getting this backwards. My method now is to draw the finished book on a scrap, draw an arrow down its spine, and match that arrow to the one on the parent sheet before making any cut.
Sometimes the grain and the most economical cut disagree, and there is a sheet that would give one more section if only you ignored the grain. I have tried ignoring it. The book it produced has a slightly wavy text block and a cover that does not quite shut, and it sits on my own shelf as a reminder rather than on anybody else's.
Grain in the boards and the cloth
Boards have grain too, and they are the easiest place to get it wrong because they feel far too stiff to have any. The greyboard I use for covers bends slightly more easily in one direction, and the difference shows up clearly once the cover is glued and drying. A board with its grain across the spine will bow outwards overnight, and no amount of pressing brings it all the way back. Every board now gets the same pencil arrow before it is cut to size.
Bookcloth behaves the same way. The cloth I use has a paper backing, and when glue goes on, the wet backing swells across the grain. If the cloth grain runs across the spine, the cover shrinks the wrong way as it dries and pulls the boards into a curve. With the grain parallel, everything moves together, and a night under weight is enough to keep the case flat.
All of this sounds fussy written down, and at the table it takes less than a minute per sheet. The difference between a book that lies quietly open and one that keeps trying to close itself is almost always decided in that minute, before the knife comes out. It is the first thing I show anyone who sits down at the table with me, and the one step I no longer skip, even for a notebook destined for the drawer by the cooker.
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Measurements here come from one kitchen table, one set of tools and the weather in one flat, so check them against your own paper before trusting them. Return to the contents.
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