10 Books

 

Great news! I now have 10 books on my Etsy! Whoo! Actually, there's this part of me that says, "that's so lame, you should have 50 by now!" and then I find myself agreeing. It really is a lame milestone. I've been pretty slow about getting books made and posted. I do have 8 more books in the works though!

Anyways, here are some pictures of the two books I posted yesterday. The first is a longstitch book. I used recycled brown leather and some of the pink fabric from the pretty in pink book. I think it turned out great.

 

Had fun braiding the wrap around tie.

 

The next one is another cord bound book. This one also turned out great, and would be a good idea for a Father's day gift.

In honor of my 10 book milestone, I thought it would be fun to list 10 of my favorite books, in no particular order.

1. The Twelve Days of Christmas, Illustrated by Sheilah Beckett
2. Cinderella, Illustrated by K.Y. Craft
3. Rose Daughter, by Robin McKinley (heck, insert any book by Robin McKinley here, and it'll work)
4. The Host, by Stephenie Meyer
5. The Wheel of Time Series, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (o.k., o.k., I know it's not one book, but you can't really read one without the others, can you?)
6. The Fablehaven Series, by Brandon Mull (ditto)
7. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
8. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (question: is there anyone out there who has read this book and not liked it?)
9. Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling (and again, with the series)
10. Ferdinand the bull, by Munro Leaf, illustrated by Robert Lawson

Well, I guess that's it for today. Be sure to stop by my shop to take a look at my newest additions! There will be more coming soon! 

How to Destroy your Iron

It's called heat n' bond. No, I didn't ruin my iron, but I came close. A couple of days ago I tore down 20 sheets of Mohawk superfine and assembled it into text blocks. Of course, there was some leftover paper (a lot of it), so I made that into a couple of text blocks as well. I haven't done a longstitch book in a while, so I decided that would be fun. This morning I whipped out my iron so I could line a piece of leather with some of that pink fabric that I used for the pretty in pink book. This isn't very thick fabric. As I was bonding the fabric to the piece of leather I was using, I noticed it was becoming harder and harder to push the iron around. I took a peek, and was shocked to find that the heat n' bond had melted partially through the fabric and was making its way onto my iron! Gasp! Thankfully, the damage was minimal, and I was able to continue after I located my new ironing friend, teflon paper. I got it from the local screen printer the other day. It's pretty much awesome. Anyways...

I now have two books that are ready to take pictures of and post on my Etsy. I just have to wait for a day that isn't quite as gray as it is today so I can take some (good) pictures.

FINALLY!

Well, it only took me forever, but I got a couple more books up on my Etsy. I have one more I need to post up, but the pictures really aren't working out for it, so it's kind of frustrating. It's been nothing but clouds for the last week, so it's been hard to take good pictures of the books that don't turn out really dark. I also renewed my crocodile rock and butterscotch plaid books, because I'm sure they were absolutely buried by now. I took a few more pictures of the crocodile rock book because the ones I had were atrocious, and I think the new ones are a little better. I only replaced a couple for now.

Here's my most recent cord bound book. I covered this one with some more of the Map of France paper, and it's lined with greel lokta paper. I think this book would work for a Father's day gift. I tried something new with this one and covered the corners with leather. I think it adds a nice touch, and it will hopefully help protect the corners of the book as well.

Unfortunately, as I was putting the leather onto the spine, a couple of places started to look worn out. In my folly, I tried to make it look better, and I'm sure you know how that went. So now the spine has a couple of spots that show wear. Poo.

The other book I posted today is one I've had some struggles with. I actually started it a few weeks ago, but stopped because I messed it up badly. I was trying to attach a closure, but first I sewed it onto the wrong spot, then I got it onto the right spot and figured out it was not going to work at all. So then I tried to make a button closure, but that wasn't working either. So basically there are a few holes decorating the front cover. It looks like a vampire attached itself in a few places trying to find a good spot. Finally I made a tie closure, and it works great. I feel so stupid.

 

 You can see the puncture wounds in the last picture. They're not very visible on the outside of the book, but on the inside they show up pretty well. I'll make another post once I get the third book up on Etsy.

Black Leather and Plaid: A love story

This is the first longstitch book I'll be offering for sale on my Etsy. I'm pretty excited about it because I think it's a great book, and I've solved a couple of problems with this one.

Problem number one: Recycled leather
I would say that the leather I've been using has been great quality, it's just recycled from coats and purses. Coat and purse leather is usually lined with material that may or may not come completely off of the back of the leather. As I have dismantled perfectly good coats and purses, I have found that there is often times sticky residue, or the leather just wasn't made to have it's back side being shown off or rubbing against paper.
Solution: Back the leather with fabric

When I replenished my supply of heat n' bond the other day for making book cloth, I noticed on the package that it said it could be fused to all sorts of things, including leather. I thought that was nifty, then forgot about it until I visited KarleighJae's etsy. She sells some beautiful books, and I noticed that some of them were lined with fabric. I wondered, "How does she do that?" and then 'DING!' duh! heat n' bond!
I wasn't positive, but I decided to try it out. It also helped that KarleighJae had a great video tutorial on how to iron leather.

At first, I didn't think it was working. The corners were peeling off, and it just didn't look like it was sticking. Then I realized my iron had turned itself off (which it does as a safety feature every half an hour). Once I got it back up to heat, it seemed to be doing a lot better (imagine that). I was also immensely pleased when I was trimming the leather later and found it very hard to tear the fabric from the leather. It was possible, but it required a conscious effort.

Then, I had a fear of the edges fraying. They were fine now, but what about two weeks later, after it had been jostled about in a purse or something? I solved this problem by "painting" the edges with gloss medium. The stuff you use with paint to make it shiny. Not the most orthodox approach, I'm sure, but it effectively ceases the fraying, and is not visible unless you look for it.

Problem two: Thick books = a lot of holes
I like books with girth. If I want a girthy longstitch book, I have to punch a lot of holes, right? Punching holes is a pain, especially since I struggle with right angles/ lining paper up to a piece of leather. This book has 11 signatures. There's no way I wanted to punch that many holes, so I only made holes for five. I sewed in the first five signatures, then went back and sewed in the other 6 using the same holes. I feel pretty awesome right now. I think it looks pretty cool, and it solved my problem of not wanting to make any more holes than necessary. The cool thing is, I don't even have to do that. I can just sew under the signatures that are already in place if I want to sew more in. Ya, I know, I'm groovy.

So, that's the book. I sewed a button onto the front so it could have a pretty little button closure. The strap was some leftover material I had, so it worked out perfectly. I think the button and the thread coordinate nicely with the colors of the plaid.