These 3 hedgehogs are interesting. 1 is made with chocolate brown sep hide and the other 2 are made with new leather, a mottled chocolate brown cow hide. Its super stiff and doesn’t require backing (I’ll wax philosophical about this in another post) and makes a damn fine hedgehog. I was particularly impressed with the stiffness of the leather when glued down to the stiff card end sheets I had put on the 2 hedgehogs. It does require some special care when cutting.

In other words, use a SHARP blade! I would also suggest that anyone working with a heavy weight leather like this NOT use their good rotary cutter, it dulls the heck out of it and it’s not worth it I would suggest my favorite tool – the simple box cutter or click knife. (BTW this is 3.5 to 4 oz weighted leather, my usual leather is 1.5oz this is a heavy weight leather.)

Back to the hedgehogs, these are lined 160 pages of 20lb Wausau ivory colored paper. OF course they are stitched in the normal hedgehog way, clamped and glued under pressure. I used the book press to adhere the cover and it was perfectly smooth. The leather is flat and tight to the book block with no evidence of curling or cockling. I love the book press, I he’d never really gotten to put it through it’s paces before I gave it to my Dad to sse if he could make a heavier duty stronger press. I must say that it’s sweet, and I do wish that I had room for both presses, but alas I don’t.

The hedgehog above is the new cow hide with a sheep hide inlaid corner. There are some letters and numbers punched into the edge of the hide here, I’m t sure what they are for, probably something to do with the leather and color, to keep track of it at the tanning factory.
This one is choclate brown sheep hide- super soft and smooth with a hint of darker spots in it.
This is ALL the cow hide, when I ordered it I wasn’t sure of the “marbled” coloring, but seeing it in person really made me realize how cool this mottled brown is, like milk chocolate.

Anyhow 2 will be on etsy and one on eBay or some combination of that.

I also listed my old light duty book press on eBay. I’m hoping it sells for a decent amount, but it may not. Its in great shape and I used it the other day on the current batch of hedgehogs. It provides just enough pressure to evenly press the covers of hedgehogs and keep them flat.

It’s here on eBay, take a gander or make a bid.

Phew! It’s been a crazy couple of days in the Comfortable Shoes Studio. There are a number of new and exiting thing either here or on the horizon! This the first tiem all week I’ve and time to stop and post.

First, last weekend we had a friend move in to stay with u for 4 to 6 months until he can find a place of his own- wow is that a big difference! While it’s nice and all it certainly does changes thing. Secondly, I have applied for a new DayJob, it is with my current company but off the sales floor and dealing with the computer systems with in the store. It’s not an easy job nor is it a hard job, but there is a lot to learn and I do like that. So learning and applying for the new position has required that I give the DayJob a few extra hours of my time, time I can’t really afford to give, but all the same I must.

I’ve been making books here and there, but I’ve been doing all the boring bits; cutting covers and folding paper as time has permitted. After a 10-hour shift at the DayJob I had to the studio and cut a few covers etc…I didn’t realize that I had been actually finishing off books in the short time I’ve been in the studio. 3 days ago I headed to the studio to see on my ready for spines shelf that I had a stack of a dozen books. So I spent Thursday night punching spines and stations in signatures. I can’t remember what day but one day this week I spent gluing up hedgehogs. Finally last night I set to work on stitching p some of the mammoth stack of journals that I had made. I finished 3.

I’ll give each type of journal it’s own post with pictures at that!

I just posted another video to youtube, kind of a cop out though as it’s just a series of stills strung together with music.

I’m starting to hate eBay again. They have raised the low end insertion fee to$0.40 cents and the percentage that they take after that to 3.25%.

I know that this doesn’t seem like a lot but when you add all the fees and paypal fees together it end up being a lot, currently eBay takes something like 10% off the top of EACH journal I sell through them. This is going to to raise their take to close to 11%.

Ebay’s business model seems to be get people hooked and then jack up prices. Rather than to focus on marketing and gaining new customers. A road to new profits shouldn’t be gouging your current stable customer base but to gain new customers- with eBay this could be buyers or sellers; either way they win.

I’m pretty peeved. Not so mu that I’m going to nevr sell on eBay, but enough that etsy is going to see mroe and more of my books and eBay will only see 1 a week now.

I put the 400 page journal up on etsy today (see link to the right) and I’ll be putting the other on ebay tomorrow.

My coworker J’s husband T works for a local press company and has access to a supply of left over papers. Mostly small amounts f paper left over from printing jobs that company has, so it’s odd papers in small-ish amounts. Shortly before Christmas J slipped me a couple of envelopes of papers. I glanced at them and didn’t really have time to sort them or look at them too closely. I noticed some nice colors and nice heavy paper, enough to make a journal in each shade. Good stuff. Today I took the papers down to the studio to take a closer look and put them away with the rest of the paper. The first envelope contained some of my favorite Strathmore papers in some of my favorite colors. The next envelope had the stiff and thick paper. I pulled the stack out and found a nice stiff card stock, with barely perceptible gray dots all over it; another parchment and then what looked like at first a super thick slick white paper with a texture on the back. When I flipped it over it was black, and had a moleskine texture! I think its mole skin. Essentially it’s a heavy white cardstock with a texture black vinyl coating. I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do with it but it will be cool to play with. I think that I’ll be playing with it for personal use, as I’m not sure how much my designs would violate copyright.

I didn’t eat all day while I was at work so when I came home I was exhausted and tired Once I had a couple glasses of water and ate (we made a ham dinner, roasted carrots and potatoes and corn) I felt a lot better. I browsed the internet and relaxed for a little bit and then got down to the business of making art.

Essentially I glued up the 4 hedgehogs I stitched up last night and thought about the spine for the hidden pocket journal. I made a sketch and think that it will fit the theme of the journal. I’m toying with one or 2 other ideas before I settle on any one idea.

I also cut and folded the end sheets and pockets for some of the experimental journals that I give every year as gifts. Tomorrow I’ll see if I can get them folded and ready.

I realized that I’m pretty cerebral about my process of making books. I think about the spine design a lot before I ever put my pencil/pen to paper and sketch out ideas. Then I sketch out 2 or 3 ideas and 99% the time the idea I go with is one of those. Occasionally those ideas get morphed as I handle the materials. For instance the idea that I originally had for the hidden pocket journal was an elaborate long stitch with variations of linking along the spine. That was when I was working with the other leather. When I cut the new cover and put the patches on it (franken style) whole new ideas came to mind, once I handled the materials. My original ideas for the hidden pocket were stiff and worked form a different angle than the pockets, thee flow from the materials themselves and work better than my original ideas. Of course my original ideas managed to ‘eff up a rather large chunk of hide but I won’t talk about that now.

Anyway, the FrankenGiantJournal is coming along well. I’m not taking any progress shots because they will give away the secrets of the hidden pockets.

Last night when I got home from work I took a look at my bench and I couldn’t see it. IN the holiday madness and family visiting I had let it get covered in culch. So I spent about an hour clearing it off and cleaning it. The great thing about the varnish is that a quick spray of windex and a wipe it’s clean.

I have been on a roll today. I managed to get 3 6×9 covers cut from a new cow hide, 3,4.25×5.5 covers cut, folded paper for all of those and cut a few spines as well. I also made an emergency trip to AC Moore. I had called a couple of print shops in the area to find out about paper and printing. Since my printer only can handle 8.5×14 (legal) sized paper I needed to get someone to print on 11×17. I called around and no one carries nice paper in that size. Seems you can only get cheap 20lb bond paper. Not what this piece calls for. I was clearly ticked off about it and trying to figure out how to get the lines on the paper….

When the idea hit me to print out lines on a full sheet and get them to print it on my paper. I knew the person likes a particular paper and had used it with him before. So I made the trip to AC Moore and bought 2 large pads of the paper and cut the pages I needed down to 11×17. I gave the small local shop a call first and they refused to put my paper through their machine- fair enough, they don’t want it gumming up the machine, so I called another place, same deal. SO I called Staples and sure enough, they decided they would do it. So I headed to Staples and they did the printing and the charged me the regular price.

humph

Anyway. have 12 signatures, enough to make 2 books at the proper size with lines on 90lb Strathmore 400 series paper.

I bought a strap cutter on ebay a few weeks ago, and thus far I’d had only frustrations with it the straps I cut with it came out uneven and looking like I used a razor and no ruler, like I tore them off the hide, a mess. Today i figured out how to use it, and now that I’m getting better with it, it may be faster than ruler and razor, but I’m not convinced.

I have a large stack of books waiting to be sewn over the next few days.

In addition to that I did the sewing on a stack of lined hedgehogs.

No wonder I can’t sleep I’m on a roll!

I’m on a roll with the journal that I’ve been working on for weeks now. After the major gluing screw ups I tossed the old one and started fresh- with a new chunk of hide and new patches… I decided to add a few eyelets to the cover to further Frankenstein the patches and I’m using a brown thread to stitch them on. So far it’s working well. I like the look of the whole thing. It’s coming along well along with the rest of the order. All the paper has been printed and cut. Tomorrow will be all about stitching up the small books and getting the local printer to print the pages. I really wish I had gone for the larger printer, ah well, the one I have does most of what I need to have it do.

I forgot to post pics of the press that Allen, my brother, made for me, based on the other press. He added a lot of strength to this one, I can crank it down until I can’t tighten it any more and get a really great press out of it. I’ve got a few book blanks set up in it to show what it can do and stress it a bit. It’s got 7.5 inches of upward/downward movement a stainless steel screw, steel support rods, and an 8×11 inch bed.
I can’t wait to putt some hedgehogs in it tomorrow.

Allen has 2 more almost finished (with Square corners on the press plate) and I can take orders on it asap. They will be $90+ shipping, with a few up on eBay.

Due to popular demand I’ve added a link to my Del.icio.us account.

Of course due to my missing links (pun intended)I’ll have more links as time goes on. The link to the Del.icio.us account will always be on the right.