I’ve been working on a custom order for 15 to 20 journal, all either dark brown or black, 48 pages, 2 signatures with my envelope style flap and thong closure.

I’ve got 5 sewn up, ready to be trimmed and finished. I choose a fast stitching pattern, a variation on the long stitch. One of them is the machine style stitch from Keith Smith. Usually the sewing takes me longer than the covers, but in this case, the covers have been taking me a lot longet than the sewing.

I’ve been asked how to get the pages square to the covers. Or how to line up the book block so that it’s square to the covers. Here is how I do it!

I start with a finished cover, leather cut to size and backed with a paper.

I then get out my trusty right anlge square! Its a mini square that I found at a salvage store in maine. It’s about 2 inches on the short side and 3 on the long. It’s very small, and in this picture covered in Leeho 2way glue. That’s accidental! I use this with a sample signature (i.e. one I mispunched the stations.) to line up where I want the spine to be and to make it square.

Here’s my signature and square. I pick one side to be my assumed square side. In this case, and most, I picked the bottom edge of my cover. I lay the signature on the cover, leaving some room on the fore-edge from the front cover and slip the square along it’s side. I line the edge of the square against my assumed square edge of my book and then line up the signature along the square. (Did that at all make sense?)

The next step is to insert the spine template. It’s a 1 inch wide piece of scrap paper cut to the same height as my signatures. One side is coated with Leeho 2 way glue, allowed to dry and make it removable. You just need enough ofthe glue to keep the template from shifting as you draw your spine pattern and cut or punch it.

This is the tricky bit. I hold the signature, all lined up and straight to the covers , down firmly, and don’t allow it to shift. I then bring my template in and line it up against the signature. I smooth it down and removethe signature.

This is what it looks like when I’m done with the lining up. I’ve eye balled a distance from the top and bottom of the book. I give the bottom a little more space, because it gets more damage and abuse than the top.

Now I’m ready to measure out my slots or stations. I line up my clear fiskars quilting ruler along the template.

After I line up the ruler i measure out where I’d like to see the slots or stations. I use my trusty right angle square and the ruler to measure things out in a pleasing manner.

If I’m doign stations rather than slots, I draw a series of lines that go the length of the template to show where the signatures will line up.

I find the template to be the only way to get the spine straight along the cover. In the early days i measured from the fore-edge and it could sometimes be quite ugly, especially if my foredge were off a fraction of a degree.

Everyday can’t be a perfect day. I came home from work today and pretty much crashed all I was able to do was cook, eat and fall asleep. The fact that I’m updating is pretty motivated for me right now. That being said I did drive to ACMoore and purchase linen thread in black and white, since Joanne’s won’t special order it for me. (Don’t get me started, I go through 100 yards of this stuff in a month, I told them so and they won’t order it. I even offered to buy the WHOLE case, and still no.) I like ACMoore 100% more than the local Michaels- everything is in stock, organized and the staff helpful. That being said I was able to get my Leeho glue, 9 rolls of thread and more paper for my business cards, in 15 minutes and I was out the door.

After the drive, no wonder I was tired. Driving on RT.114 through Salem was not a bright idea at 3:30pm on a Friday. Not smart at all. After that I headed home with every intention of working. I did little work listing 3 journals on eBay and getting little else done. Pretty sad.

What is even more sad is that I don’t have another real day off this week, I work only 4 hours on Sunday, but it’s going to be a brutal 4 hours of counting. I’ll be able to get a lot done before that. Hopefully I’ll get the folding done for all the Pastor’s journals. I’m in process of ordering more leather for his journals. I’d love to find a local tannery that would let me go in and see the leather before I buy it. I love brad’s leather (from upstate NY) but I’d like to get things closer to home too. I’d of course love to get things cheaper too. I have to say though; Brad’s leather is pretty damn good.

That aside I feel pretty accomplished due to the large amount of work I completed. I finished, in this order:
1 custom order for 2 3-signature journals
9 covers for a 15 to 20 journal custom order, I cut and backed them, so all I have to do is figure out what sewing style I’m going to use for them and lay it out.
Cut down 2 sets of 10 signatures
Finshed 4 eBay line journals, devising a way to fix the screwed up sewing pattern I made on the last of my gold deer hide spine (I double cut the spine, laying them out twice and then cutting twice. In this rare case measuring twice before cutting didn’t work, I’d already cut them, though I didn’t know it.) What really stinks about this particular screw up is that I did it not once but twice, to both the deer covers I had left. The sewing pattern I used is a modified long stitch, continuous. It looks great, really dense along the spine, but takes a lot longer to sew.

   

This book is very similar to the last I posted and is in fact for the same order. Again I went with a simpl stitch and I varied it form the last. I made the top staions align and varied the stations inside the sewing. I like it. It’s subtle and nice.

The journal size is 5.5h X 8.5w (inches) and 60 pages. All the same specs as the last too.

I’ve been working on this special order for 3 days, mainly thinking of what style of sewing to use. Because it only has 3 signatures I wanted to use somethign a little different. Slots could have been done, but what a pain in the butt to do for only 3 signatures. I also considered doing all 3 signatures in the same stations along the spine, but it wasn’t doing it for me. It made the pages bunch upin an udly bump along the spine. So I refered to my Keith Smith book 1 2&3 signature sewings and decided that simple was better. I chose a modified continuous saddle stitch. Simple yet very elegant.

This leather is gorgeous. Smooth, silky; speaking texturally: sensual. And I’m quite in love with it. I didn’t want the sewing to be so amazing it would detract from the leather. This is one of those few hides that I’ve decided must stand out from the sewing. This sewing is simple, in natural linen to stand out and compliment the deep darklightly distressed color of the leather. the flap edge is rough but still controlled. I added the pen holder that has become something I use on almost everything. It’s so simple yet makes so much sense.

I loaded these 2 journals up to ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6964933641
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6964933289

I finished them a couple of days ago.

They are these 2:

I finished these up tonight. 3 journals. 2 distressed and one cocoa brown leather. All with long stitching and some decorative X’s along the spine. You can’t see it on the cocoa brown book, but trust me, its there, along with a faux endband.

So yeah, I’m exausted. I’m going to bed.

So this is also one of the last pieces of deer hide i have left. I’m kind of sad to see it gone, but it was all nice.

This journal was the journal of mistakes. First I managed to punch the stations before cutting the pages to the correct size- in this case they only needed to be 5.25 inches high, rather than 5.5 inches. So first I did that dumbness. Then I cut only on one side, so I had to go back after sewing in 3 of the signatures and trim the other side, so I had to cut signatures away
from the spine. ACK!!!!

Then while shooting the pictures I managed to loosen a nut too far and drop a greased bolt into my hand. Not realizing I had grease on my thumb I picked the journal up. Only noticing AFTER i shot the pic that i had gotten grease on the journal. Because it’s hot the grease was nearly liquid and has absorbed into the leather. sadly there is no fixing this. So I’ll put it up on eBay at a reduced cost. I spent so much time on this one only to screw it up beyond repair.

I swear this heat had adled my brain.