#journal binding

I am trying my hand at different types of binding (like the screw post binds) and this week I did my first long stitch binding!

It’s for my sister, who has to have period-appropriate accessories on the weekends because she’s a stage hand type person at the local renaissance festival (her spouse is a character actor!) so I wanted her to have a notebook she could carry around!

It’s bound in leather because honestly I’m trying to get rid of the leather, leather is the devil with a beautiful dragon lining paper I got from Hollander’s. The paper is the same Neenah royal sundance I used for photo backing in the screw post albums - I’m told it’s good for sketching and watercolors though cannot confirm. I attached a cord of thin leather to tie it shut, and sewed it with gold waxed linen thread from Oregon Art Supply! I stitched it with French links because that’s the sewing I’m most familiar with, but I’d like to try something different next time - although it does look pretty!

I’m planning to make a matching one for her spouse sometime soon - turns out handmade books make great Christmas gifts!

I was originally going to get this notebook printed through Denik, but they decided to be stupid and remove their large lined notebook options, so I just bound the notebook myself because I couldn’t find another option that looked the way I wanted.

Tried some new techniques with this one, including printed boards which I LOVE, and a new glue that I HATE, lol. Overall it came out pretty good but there are a handful of mistakes. Totally useable, though! And the printer I used for the boards sent me enough extras to make 4 notebooks, so I might make some more when I’m willing to sit down and deal with my at home printer to make more pages. Doing it 8.5x11 size means I have to manually feed the 11x17 sheets into the printer one. at. a. time. And I have to do each one twice to print both sides. Takes fucking forever.

The art on the cover is by an artist named Aleksei Kuz’mich Denisov-Uralsky in the early 1900s. It is one of the most famous paintings of a wildfire.

The back cover is an illustration done by me, featuring a bunch of vintage equipment referenced from the Smithsonian.