One Before I Go...

...for the year.

Just finished binding the latest journal this morning.  You can see better in the second photo that this is Coptic with French Link binding.

The journal's specs ~ 9-1/4 x 7 inches, 8 signatures, 128 pages, 9 foldouts and 17 pockets.  Too fat at the fore edges, as usual.  Whatever...

This is my penultimate hand bound book for this book making roll I've been on.  Just one more, and then I'll be switching to something else early in 2015.  I've already been thinking about the new thing, building the inspiration and desire.

I've really liked focusing on one thing for the last few months, and doing a lot of that.  It works better for me than constantly changing up what I'm doing, where my focus is, etc.  

Other than the coming media shift, I have no plans, goals or resolutions for 2015.  I don't believe in such things anymore, especially the resolutions part.  Come what may, I'll make the best of it.  We have no control. anyway, over most of what happens in our lives, and intricate plans usually go awry through no fault of our own.  I can say, though, that I aspire to be calmer and more peaceful, to have more compassion, to show more kindness, and to be more heartfelt in all that I do.

Wishing you all the very best in the coming year.  Happy New Year!  xoxo

New Goodies

I got a raft of treats for Christmas, nearly all from mail-art and/or blog pals I've never met.  Thank you so much to Pamela, Dawn, John, Terry, Ellen, Jen, Donna, Jacki, Kristin, and others who sent cards.  For someone who doesn't celebrate Christmas, this was truly lovely.

I stopped by Eureka Books when I was in town on Tuesday, and found five great old books in the bargain section.  The two Book House volumes are from 1921 and 1925, and I hadn't seen these earlier editions before.  The others I have from that series were published in 1948 and 1953.  Essentially the books inside are the same, but the covers are way more ornate on the earlier ones.  Also, the one on top above is number five in the series, and the title is "From The Tower Window," whereas the number five in the later editions is called "Over The Hills."

This music theory book is from 1945.

The picture puzzle book is from 1937.  Interesting what we used to amuse ourselves with back then.

This last beauty is from 1900.

Hope you all had a special day yesterday, and a lovely weekend.  xo

Green Machine

Here's my latest book, completed over the weekend.  I pretty much used up every last scrap of green paper I had on this one ~ collages, hand painted paper, scrapbook paper, odds and ends.

This is another album-style journal, 6-3/4 x 10-1/2 inches, with 7 signatures and 112 pages.

I shiboried the vintage cotton fabric a couple years ago, and decided just the other day to add the stamped leaves.  I created the self-tapes first, then temporarily positioned them on the covers so that the tapes would get stamped along with the covers.  In the last photo, you can hardly see the tapes at all.

This journal has 10 foldouts and 15 pockets.  As I typically do, I made too many folios, so now I have two signatures left to bind separately.

I love this binding technique, as I've said before ~ sewn on tapes.  And I prefer making my own tapes than using ribbon or anything else ready-made.

That lovely sewing frame I built back in September, that I was inspired to make after using one in a bookmaking workshop I took, is sitting idle.  Besides being cumbersome to use, it's actually totally unnecessary, especially with cut-to-size handmade tapes.  It's a lot easier to work on the edge of my worktable instead of having another gizmo to manage while binding.

Hope you have a lovely holiday week, wherever you are and whatever you celebrate.  xo

The World Out My Window

Collage Postcard from a while ago

One of you may have received this in the mail, for all I can remember.  Just checking in here, not much going on.  I have a bunch of papers and collages on my worktable ready to become a journal, and the book boards already covered with fabric for same.  I just haven't felt motivated in the last few days.  I've been reading an awful lot, though...but that's nothing new.  I might just read myself out of this year and into the next.

Just finished a book I enjoyed a lot, called The Good Father, by Noah Hawley.  Also recently finished In the Presence of the Enemy, another Inspector Lynley novel.  The last two in this series (including Playing For the Ashes) have been particularly good; I think the series is getting better overall.  Thanks to those of you who recommended I read it all.  Not long ago I watched the first BBC Inspector Lynley episode, and got bored with it.  I've seen them already, several years ago, but after reading the books, the TV episodes can't hold a candle to them.  Seeing actor Sharon Small as Sgt. Havers in my mind as I'm reading, though, is a good thing.

We're having rain on and off, and it's lovely.  So far this is shaping up to be a wet rainy season ~ sounds like a no-brainer, I know, but for the last several years we've had dry rainy seasons...i.e., no rain when we should have been having it.  So let's all keep our fingers crossed.

Have a good week.  xo

On The Rebound

This is the journal I tore apart and rebuilt.  It's the same structure as it was ~ long stitch with sewn on tapes ~ and I used the same handmade fabric tapes.

Previously the book had signatures that had been glued together as well as a number of recycled magazine pages that weren't as hefty as I now prefer (I'm no longer using recycled paper for my handmade books, unless it's non-glossy and heavy enough to write on).

I kept a couple of folios from each of the original six signatures, added folios to each, and then repunched the original holes in all.

The journal is 9 x 5-3/4 inches, has 96 pages, 11 foldouts and 13 pockets.

This last folio is one of two left over from the original shabby journal I made in Mary Ann Moss's Remains of the Day class, two plus years ago.  I had too many folios to bind in back then, and have been saving the leftovers to use when I could, elsewhere.

Have a great weekend.  xo

Plain and Simple

I finished this journal today.  This the second one with a cover that I'd remodeled a couple years ago.

The book is 10 inches high by about 9 inches wide.  I decided to make it a plain journal, with all white pages except for the collages that form the outer folio of each of the two signatures.  There are 80 pages and four pockets.  I didn't want to add foldout extensions and a lot of other embellishments since the pages are so big to begin with and the book is so thin.  So this journal is plain and simple.

Last night I ripped apart a book I made a couple years ago...one of those I mentioned where I'd glued the signatures together.  Today I added folios to what was left of the original signatures, and stitched on pockets and page extensions.  Will bind it tomorrow.

See you in a few days.  xo 

Stuff

I showed you this journal sometime earlier in the year.  It was to be my hybrid writing journal/daily-ish art journal.  I've been working in it since August.  Here are a few page images.

I'd taken the removable spiral binding out of the Cachet grid journal, stitched stuff on a number of pages, stacked the stitched pages alternately with non-stitched ones, and put the spiral binding back in.  

I've been using bits and pieces of Teesha Moore's collage sheets to further embellish the non-stitched as well as the stitched pages.  She graciously made available for download a ton of her fab collage imagery to members of the Artstronaut's Club this year.  The collage sheets were really the only things I took away from a year in the club.  It was just way too overwhelming, all the inspiration and ideas that were posted nearly every day.  There was no way I could have kept up even if I'd wanted to.  After all, this was the year I let go of so much DO.  Needless to say, I will not be renewing my membership for 2015.  More is never better in my book ~ it just engenders insanity.

I'm reading an incredible first novel by Smith Henderson, called Fourth of July Creek.  It's amazingly good.

I've seen a number of excellent films and miniseries via Netflix recently, too ~

• Skin, with Sophie Okinedo, Sam Neill and Alice Krige
• Spider, with Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson and Gabriel Byrne
• Iris, with Judi Dench, Kate Winslett, Hugh Bonneville and Jim Broadbent
• The Politician's Wife, with Juliet Stevenson
• The State Within, with Jason Issacs, Ben Daniels and Sharon Gless
• Albert Nobbs, with Glenn Close
• Buena Vista Social Club, documentary
• Finding Vivian Maier, documentary
• Tim's Vermeer, documentary

By and large, I prefer obscure films, many of them British or otherwise foreign.  How do I find them?  I peruse Netflix's offerings regularly and check the ratings.  I stay away from mass-marketed movies unless the film has had really good reviews and/or I want to see the particular actors' work.  The coming-soon trailers on the films I do watch nearly always have a couple of movies I want to see and I add those to my queue at Netflix.  I've got over 100 films in my queue at the moment.

Anyhow, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Have a good week.  xo

The Next Book

I covered this thin book with Gelli printed papers probably a couple years ago now.  Yesterday I made signatures and bound it, with my favorite two-section binding, the Lightning Bolt (see Keith Smith vol. 2).  Two-section binding means both signatures were sewn at the same time; the thread moves from one signature to the other on the outside of the cover, while moving vertically within each signature on the inside of the book.

This journal's stats ~ 10-1/2 x 7-1/2 inches, 9 pockets, two foldouts, 56 pages (2 signatures of 7 folios each).  I have another already-prepped cover, same size, that I'll be finishing off later this week, also with the Lightning Bolt stitch.