06 September 2007

Little Journals

Rowena commented in an earlier post that I have a lot of energy. I don't really, except for bookbinding. Making books seems to energize me, so I'm trying to keep making lots of quick little projects so I can use some of that energy for other things, like work and school.

Anyway, on the previously-mentioned bookbinding blog My Handbound Books, I found a link to Carmencho Arregui's website, where there are instuctions for the Arregui-invented Crossed-Structure Binding (CSB) (of which there are multiple verisons). Of course, I had to try these. I did three sewing variations of the CSB Basic, using some book pages I had cut and folded eons ago (several years, believe it or not). I'd folded the pages way back before I knew anything about paper grain direction, so the grain actually runs the wrong way on the pages. Since you don't need much, if any, adhesive for this binding structure, I figured it wouldn't matter too much, especially since it's just an experiment. Anyway, I'm not unhappy with the results.


Even though it was my favourite colour, I think the dark green one is the least successful. I didn't have anything on hand that I wanted to use as a fancy closure, but I might add something later on (I'm wondering what I did with those sea-creature shaped charms I bought a couple of years ago).


Even from the back, the blue one's my favourite. I remembered, when stitching the brown one, how much of a pain in the butt sewing leather is. Especially when you don't have the right needle. Also, next time I think I'll glue the straps in place first, then sew, to make sure they stay where they're supposed to be.


So I think it was a reasonably successful experiment--and a good way to use up the various leathers and suedes I've collected that can't be used in "proper" leather bookbindings. I'll definitely be revisiting this structure again, though first I think I'll try some of the small projects in the two bookbinding books I was given for christmas. Or was it my birthday? At some point, I'm going to work on some more elaborate medieval books, but I'll need to buy more supplies first.

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