I’m pretty excited about this sketchbook. It’s perfect landscape size, but also can be used verticle and I like it a lot. I’m sad that the lady whom I orginally bought the paper for backed out- leaving me with 30 sheets of very expensive Cold Press paper- my favorite but most people like hot press in their journals. (With good reason, though I love CP it IS hard to write on!)
The stats!:
5″hX5.5w
24 papges of Fabriano Artistico Antique white MouldMade cotton rag paper
140lb paper
Long stitch with end wrapping or “false headbands”
Natural linen thread
Backed with handmade Lama Li paper in pale blue
Dark Distressed Chestnut Brown Sheep hide cover

It’s a fantastic little sketchbook/journal and I plan on making something similar for myself for when I travel to Maine at the end of this month. It is also very similar to a journal that I’m making for another special order- the dimensions of hers wil be a little different, but it will be much the same- but with 100 pages.

Things have been going pretty well book wise!

I finished up the pastor’s order last night and allowed myself some extra quality time with my bed this morning- I got up at 8:30 instead of 7! The pastor’s order looks great. I must say that it as a collection is beautiful, separately it’s not as impressive but each individual books is unique and is a great example of how a running stitch can look elegant and yet be so darn simple! I’m pretty happy with the results. Hopefully the pastor likes them as much, and hopefully the kids will like them too.

I have a journal up on eBay ending today. I’m not sure how I managed to list one last Saturday, it must have been after the DayJob. It’s the golden deer hide joural with the continuous figure 8 stitch in 2 colors. It’s afat rich spine. I hope it does well, it took a lot longer to sew than most of my eBay journals!.

Here’s a link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6966286759&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:1

I’m thinking it’s a great day outside; I may head up to the Breakheart Reservation and take a little hike. I’ve got a few journals to work on and I should be near the phone incase the DayJob calls- I’m sort of on call.

   

I forgot to mentionthat I loaded up 2 new journals to eBay today.

ialso put up a large journal- 6×9 outter dimmensions

Youc an see them all here:

http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/less23

Today my leather and drawing paper arrived dry and quite safely. I’m completely overjoyed at the quality of the leather. It’s simply fantastic. Super smooth heavier than normal and just great. It’s damn near flawless. Brad came through again. Even the distressed leather is pretty darn great. I had bought a ream of Strathmore drawing paper from Utrecht and I’m pretty happy at their speed of shipping and the condition it arrived in- in this weather – it was dry and not one damaged corner. Not quite what I can say for the significantly more expensive fabriano I bought a week ago from Jerry’s. Super cheap prices, not so safe shipping. Though shipping was more expensive from Jerry’s. Go figure.

Today was quiet and not as hot as it h as been, I drove home in thunder and some small amounts of pouring rain, my tomatoes are happy! I had to rip into that leather tonight. I cut all the remaining covers for the Pastor’s order and got them glued up. Tomorrow I’ll finish trimming the glued portions and hopefully get them backed for the most part. I also cut 2 large sized journal covers for the eBay line and 11 covers for the small eBay line. 7 black and 4 distressed. The next group to get sewn will be the Pastor’s order.

I’m going to wait until Friday to see if the HP paper arrives after that I’m asking for a refund. I have 3 other orders to work on and I’m pretty excited about all of them. One is for a small HP watercolor journal, another midsize journal filled with kraft paper and another larger sized journal filled with drawing paper. I was able to get the kraft paper all hand torn tonight. 12 signatures of hand torn kraft paper, it’s rough and very earthy. The hand torn edges look the most like a deckled edge than any other paper I’ve torn. (Insert happy dance here!) Tomorrow I hope to get some of the drawing paper cut to size too.

I’m having some issues with the map I purchased for the inner cover. The map shack owner was or is a heavy smoker and the map stinks. Really stinks. I’ve had it in baking soda since I bought it and still when I crack open that bag it smells. I may be heading out for another map. I’m going to try kitty litter next- anyone else out there know anything to remove smell from paper? It’s just too cool a map to give up on.

My vacation from the DayJob- and several days from Bookbinding are coming up soon- July 19th through the 25th. I’ll spend some time binding, I expect that I have all special orders done before I leave and I will take orders during that time but I’ won’t be starting them until after I’m back. I will be listing items before I leave on Tuesday and I’ll check email periodically while in Maine, but not as often as I do here. I’ll be in a place with no electric and no internet for much of my time. I’ll be spending a significant portion of my time in a lake.

 

well I’m feeling pretty good I completed 6 books today. Granted I had made the covers and punched the stations on the previous 3 days but still it feels good to get all that done. That being said that’s a pretty good output for 3 part-time days. (I finished 2 more late last night.)

Today was spent sewing the 6 books and sourcing out materials for a custom order. My HP paper still hasn’t shipped yet thoguh I’ve been billed for it- what’s up with that? The custom order I’m working on is for a journal with drawing paper and maps on the inside covers, a very neat idea. I was hoping to find some nice topographical maps but he didn’t have any that were in my somewhat limited pricerange. He also didn’t have a small map of the US for inside the front cover.

I got the GRAND idea of heading over to Melrose to the used book store. ONly to be hit by devastating news once I arrived on Main street. The book store closed sometiems ago and has been replaces by, of all things for a dry town, a jazz bar?!?!? I think it was a jazz bar, could have been a coffee shop I’m not sure. I was too heart broken to go in, just kept on walking. So the vintage map I was hoping for wasn’t to be had, instead I’ve got a recent map that I’ll be looking to vintage-fy on Saturday. I also plan on heading to yard sales to see if I can find a book with a more authentic map. I am glad I was able to find an older map for the backing paper- a street map of Austin. It’s very cool and very very out of date. (I can’t believe the guy was trying to sellit as something that could possibly help someone when driving in Austin!)

I’m still wainting on my leather. I’m getting a little cheesed about it not being here today. It always arrives one day late. *grumbles*

So I’m off to cut mroe covers.

     These are the first 2 journals that I’ve made for a 25 journal special order.

       

This is the first in my large line for eBay. I’m not sure I’m going to be happy with the experiment. I’mgoing to give it a half dozen in this size before I give up on it. these are twice as expensive to make but take about the same amount of time to sew. We’ll see what happens with them.

You can view the auction HERE!

I didn’t get a chance to write a run down of all the things I got done book binding-wise yesterday.

I had a particularly productive day. I also realize HOW important it is for me to drink a lot more water than I have been, coffee is good but water is better. Anyway, I managed to cut, reinforce and back 7 travel sized covers and 2 large sized covers. I folded and gathers enough signatures for god knows how many books. I then laid out all the book blanks for the covers I had made. I cut all the spines. Finally I finished sewing 2 books- both in distressed leather but one larger and one small. I’m getting ready to start sewing this morning.

The great thing about the books that I have been working on is that they can fulfill my eBay needs and the large order needs- if she likes the coloration of the leather.

The thread that I used seems thinner than the thread I usually use; it didn’t flair the spine nearly as much as it usually does. The paper also seems thinner? I know it’s the same weight, 24lb (90gsm) but it seems different. It’s acid free and a nice color. To the binding table I go.