Comfortable Shoes Studio

JOtter Cover

This is a leather jotter or moleskine cahier cover. Golden yellow distressed sheep hide, smooth texture. Elastic closure. Jotters slip into the cover and slip out when you want them to. This is a one f a kind item I'm not intending to make more. One off for a friend of my mother as a Christmas gift.

The Giant

Take a look at this book. It measures 9x12 inches and has 192 pages. The paper is 60lb drawing paper and will handle just about any media. The cover is stiff smooth black cowhide. Features a flap and strap closure. The binding is a  longstitch with linking and a keyhole cut into the spine. I have a lot more pics on my flickr page. This one is sold (custom order) but I'm working on another in golden yellow deer hide.

Another Big Journal

This large 6x9 inch journal is entirely handmade. The cover is hand cut from a smoothly textured jet black cowhide. the spine of this journal is 1.5 inches thick.

The inside pages are 160 unlined 110lb cardstock. The color of these pages is a warm cream color. The texture of the pages is perfect for writing and sketching. The paper is acid free. It's a wonderful thick paper perfect for writing with a heavy fountain pen, no feathering or bleed through in my experience. It's a lovely paper.

The pages are hand sewn to the cover with unbleached naturally colored Irish linen thread. It's been lightly waxed to prevent fraying and tangling during sewing. The sewing style on this journal is a variation of the long stitch. The there are 3 keyholes that peak through the cover to the folded edges of the paper.

The back cover folds over the front to form an envelope style flap. This protects the inner pages from damage but also holds everything secure. It expands allowing you to stuff as much onto these pages as possible. From the flap emerges a long matching leather strap that ties around the journal and to itself to hold everything inside securely. With 160 pages to glue or stuff into this could end up being a very thick journal.

ON etsy here.

Mini Moleskine

So this little beauty is a miniature moleskine. It's stitched with hand waxed cotton thread. The spine was clamped and glued by hand with acid free flexible glue. The cover is a vinyl plastic coating just like a real moleskine. Inside are 32 pages of cream colored heavy paper. The bookmark is naturally colored hemp and in the back is a pocket. Holding the whole thing shut is an elastic.

   

mini sewing cradle- really mini

Sometimes when working in the miniature sizes you can use your full size tools and sometimes they just don't work, case in point-my sewing cradle, when I Was making the mini books in the previous post the signatures slid through the slot in the cradle, so I needed something.... smaller. So I made a mini cradle. It measures about 1.5 inches long, and each side is that size. It's about 2 inches or so high and surprisingly sturdy. It's surprisingly stiff and rigid. I'll be making a small sized awl to go with the set and make punching the stations easier.

 

 

 

Book Cloth

I am a firm believer in making book cloth the old-fashioned traditional way: paste, thin paper and fabric. It’s been done for, well, centuries and it works and it’s not too hard.

First you need a starch paste. I like wheat paste. It’s cheap and easy to find. All you need is pastry flour or wheat starch and water. Pastry or cake flour is available in any grocery store and wheat starch is available in specialty stores. You can also buy “real” wheat paste. Mix a 1:4 ratio of flour to water. Mix it well, no lumps. Now cook it, whisk constantly over medium low heat until it becomes glossy and translucent. This amount of paste will make a lot of book cloth and paste paper. I would suggest using distilled water it won’t have any funny chemicals in it that will discolor later. If you are an acid free freak add a ½ tsp to baking soda to the water it will neutralize any acid content.

Cut your fabric to the size you would like. Use pre-washed and ironed fabric so that it doesn’t shrink when you are gluing it. Cut your thin paper 1 inch larger all around than the fabric. I really like washi paper best but student grade sumi painting paper is more than perfect.

Now you need to spread your glue. There are lots of differing opinions about how to do this, some people like to use a rubber spreader and other like glue brushes and others like cheap chip brushes or gesso brushes. I’m a brush woman myself. I used to use a 2-inch wide chip brush. It worked great, but now that I’m working with a smaller size of paper I use a medium glue brush. I suggest you try a variety of styles and see what works for you.

I hold my paper down with one hand in the center, spread glue allover the edges- generously. And then start to work the center. Work the glue around until the wrinkles relax out of the paper. With thin washi paper it takes 20 seconds or so for this to happen, constantly move the brush and glue, work fast and loose, spread the glue generously. Don’t skimp on the glue. When you see the paper relax, start to move excess glue to the edge and off the paper. You don’t want a ton of glue on there when you put the fabric on the paper; you want a thin EVEN layer.

Now your paper is relaxed with a thin even layer, you need to drop your fabric to the glue covered paper wrong side down into the glue. Gently rub the fabric into the glue. Now you need to pick the fabric, glue and paper sandwich up and take it to a window and place the sandwich to the window, fabric side to the glass, the extra glue covered paper will hold the paper and fabric taught while it dries keeping it for the most part flat and keeping tension on the fabric. (If you are lucky to have it- old window panes work great for this- I was lucky that when I bought my house there were several large pieces of plate glass in the garage.) AS it dries the paper will peel away from the glass, if it doesn’t it cleans easily with soap and water.

There are many reasons to back your cloth with paper. First it makes the fabric very easy to work with when binding, you fabric won’t stretch when you glue it to you board. Secondly it keeps the color of the cloth true to the fabric. Third, it decreases glue seepage. Fourth it makes a strong durable bond of fabric to paper to board. There are several tutorials out there for making book cloth with wonder under or other fusible interfacing. While it’s fast and easy to use its more expensive and unknown in terms of it’s being archival or acid free. (Let it be known here that I’m not an acid free freak. There are books and paper out there that were made long before PH was understood so my philosophy is that you can do what you want and most things are going to outlive you and probably your children.

 

Mini Hedgehog Notebook, really mini

A comment was made about mini books and I've made them in the past, so I thought I'd make a few more. These measure 1x1 inch and about 1/4 inch thick. The stitching is smythe or hedgehog/moleskine style. Working in this size was not compatible with my full sized tools, so I made a few mini tools- including a sewing cradle an an awl. For folds and scoring I might have to look into making some sort of folder.

Mad Matchbook Binding Project of '07

Holy cow. I call this the mad matchbook binding project of ‘07! Over the last 3 days I’ve cut paper, cut covers, stapled and folded 36 matchbook notebooks all are 2.5x3 inches and .5 inches thick. I cut myself through a 2-inch thick stack of recycled fliers printed on one side and blank on the other. It’s really thick nice paper, about 50 sheets per notebook. I’ve been using a few of these from my last batch and I’ve got to say that they are really handy on a number of levels; great for lists, notes, and passing phone numbers as well as numerous other things. 36 of them, my hands are sore form cutting so much paper, a definite nod to the fact that I need a paper sheer if I’m going to continue to work with recycled paper.

Anyway, enjoy the pics, these will be headed to etsy tomorrow or Sunday.

originality in binding

I wanted to write a little bit about originality. The topic came up on a discussion group I’m in because someone made a book with an unusual cover and someone else asked a related question using a related material. In this case the book was made with a cassette tape cover and the question was if one could use the actual tape to bind a book. Someone in the group responded immediately with the response of “Don’t make a cassette tape book, someone else in this group is already making one.”

First off I think the purpose of being in a group online is to gain ideas, learn new techniques and for inspiration. This person became INSPIRED by the previous poster’s materials and was using that as a springboard for their inspiration; in my mind exactly why one might join a group. Secondly, in terms of originality, we’re talking about a centuries old art/craft that is gaining a revival but that means that in some terms it’s all been done before. This wasn’t the first time I’ve seen a cassette tape book and I’m sure it won’t be the last. It’s been done before but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done again in a new and original way. In this case- the 2 halves of the cassette were taken apart, attached to board and decorations placed on the board, original.

If I got my undies in a knot every time I saw a limp leather long stitch book, my feet wouldn’t have any circulation; ya know what I’m saying?  The simple fact is that when working with a centuries old art/craft you can’t get upset when you see something similar on the net. I’ve been putting my work online for over 6 years now and I’ve seen blatant rip offs of my patterns and designs, and I get pissed momentarily and realize that’s the permeability of the web, one of it’s great features. If I don’t want someone ripping off my design I shouldn’t put them up on the ‘net.  When I gain inspiration from someone I try and give them credit and I think that’s simply courtesy.

My main point is here is that bookbinding is a centuries old art/craft and essentially with the exception of a small handful of us, it’s all been done before. Even if you’re attaching something unusual to the covers of a book it’s been done. So can we all untwist our undies and get back to making and enjoying books?

 

covers

I meant to post some pictures about my hard covered books, showing the covers before attachment. So here ya go:

This picture above is of the covers finished but not attached to a book block.

This shows one of the covers "inside" before additional support is added to the spine. My favorite additional support is tyvek. But you could add a nice washi paper of any paper really and glue it in along the spine. Then glue in teh book block.

Martha Stewart has a Screw Punch- notes on a supply trip

Martha Stewart has a screw punch. I couldn’t resist when I went to Michaels and I saw it. It’s larger than my wooden screw punch has a rubberized grip and storage in the handle for tips. In a few tests it’s slips through paper smoothly and without issue. It looks like the tips from my wooden screw punch should fit right into it. The large tips look as though they will cut through binder board with no issue but the smallest tip isn’t long enough. However if it will take a standard tip from Talas then no worries. At $24.99 it’s a good price, especially if standard screw punch tips fit it. The punch comes in a cardboard box, covered in brown paper with a clear plastic window to the inside. It closes up with a baby blue elastic.

It seems that Martha Stewart has a whole line of scrap booking and paper working supplies that are only available in Michaels stores. The line is completely coordinated with the other parts and pieces in the line. What does this mean for the average bookbinder and art journaler? Lots of possibilities. It would make it easier to coordinate pages, layers of paints and inks with papers and embellishments. It also means a higher price point. Anything “Martha” does comes with an additional price tag. But I’ll point out that the screw punch I bought was only $24.99, comes with it’s own storage, works really well and comes with 3 standard tips; not a bad deal overall.

I did notice that a lot of the paper by the piece at Michaels had changed. It looked as thought they had changed vendors or something of that nature. I was not as impressed as I have been in the past. Also the large stacks of paper that they have offered in the past have changed as well. This looks as though this is a repackaging by the vendor as it’s the same brand of paper but packages are different. They now offer 10 packs of a single style of paper, which is good but the colors are VERY limited and some of the other shade and styles that used to be offered in the large stack of 100 sheets have changed too. For someone like me who will buy 6 packages of card stock at a time this doesn’t bode well. I stocked up this time but I’m afraid the next time I go in things will be again different.

I didn’t stop at AC Moore this time out but the last time I was in I noticed a change in the layout of the store as well as the product in the store. Where Michaels is headed toward the higher end of the money chain AC Moore seems headed into the value end of the pool. There is no issue with value per se until it affects the quality of the products. I like value but I don’t like shoddy tools or supplies. They make the job of the artist and craft person harder. Not to mention that it devalues our work. People think that if they can head into their local craft store and buy supplies on the cheap that they should be able to buy the work of an artist or crafts person more cheaply than ever before.

I’ll end my rant now.

*note: I tested my old screw punch tips in the Martha Stewart punch it's a no go. BUt it's pretty close so I imagine that It will be super easy for me to make a small chuck that fits inside the handle and fits around the tip. A little thin brass tubing and a dremel and I'll have a chuck that will fit my old tips as well as those form Talas.

Binding Tutorial

I've added a new page tot he left of my main page. I've copied the text and images into this post so you can see it. I'll update it periodically when I come upon some new websites with tutorials. If you have any suggestions leave a comment below.

So you think you want to start your way into this fantastic hobby of bookbinding? HEre area few tutorials, and beware binding can be addictive... like crack...

Coptic Style Tutorials: CHeck out this Youtube video:

There is no sound so don't worry!One of the things that makes that video so great is that he's showing a single needle tutorial with the covers attachedi n the correct way. See how his cover and spine edge of the signatures are even- the covers don't overhang the spine? Yup, that's how they should be. It shows a few good things- tensions are correct and the cover is attached properly.

This little gem of a tutorial is written from the stand point of a teacher as a classroom aid. (I remember those days, wish I'd had time to teach my students how to make a coptic book.) This is also for a single needle coptic book. (Image above is from the website.)

This tutorial is also for a single needle chain stitch. This tutorial features some great clear images of the sewing process. However, I disagree with the author in the section written on threads. The weight of the thread comes into play not because of "knotting between signatures" but because the thread lies in the fold of each signature. The thicker the thread the larger the stack of thread and paper along your spine, which causes the distinctive "coptic" spine flair that makes coptic bound journals so great for collage work. If you have knotting between your signatures you have other issues.... That being said this tutorial is one of the better out there. (Image above is property of the article author.)

This is not a true caterpillar stitch but it's like a mini version. It's from Evil Rooster, a website I love for it's name not to mention that the site owner makes some great books. One of the many things that I really lie that is done on evil rooster is the use of stitching cards to learn new techniques. I have half stitched books, Evil rooster has card. I like the cards because you wouldn't be tempted to sell s technique card like you might be tempted to sell a really col experimental technique journal.... Not that I've done that or anything....(Image belongs to Evil Rooster)

The Bonefolder

For those of you out there who are fans of making your own books you might want to check out The Bonefolder. It's a quarterly scholarly look at the art of making books. Most times it's a great read. In the back there are a few advertisements for supplies!

Make Your Awl the Charles Atlas of Awls

In a discussion on the HedgehogsForever list the topic of awls came up. I’ve got several, all work different purposes for me, but the basic is to put holes in stuff. One I use for cardstock pages, another for softer paper, and another still for the custom journals. I made my first awl, bought another and made another; then had my brother design and make a hand turned awl for me.

I love the one my brother made for me, hate the one I bought and use the 2 I made regularly.

Some awl tips-

• Keep them clean. It might seem kind of anal retentive but a more useful suggestion I can’t make. I use my awls for lots of stuff- piercing paper, picking up junk off my table, and lifting bits of glue covered paper. Wipe clean with a damp cloth and any cleaner you like. Allow to air dry before storing. Wet and damp metal will rust.

• Keep them sharp. There is nothing worse than a dull awl. Seriously, have you ever tried to pierce through paper with an awl that is dull? UGH! I bought a super fine grit diamond stone at HD to sharpen my awls. I grind all my awls to an easily sharpened 45 degree angle, just like a chisel or a knife but you can also sharpen the awl in a rotating motion and keep a more typical needle point. That’s a lot harder than a 45 degree angle. Remember a dull tool is a dangerous tool. (That’s what my Dad always told us… And it’s a mantra I’ve found true- I’ve got scars to prove it.)

• Polish them. Okay so I thought keeping them clean was going to top the list of anal retentivity. This does. Why polish? It allows the metal to glide through the paper with ease. It reduces the drag from the paper against the metal making it easier to push through a large and thicker stack. To polish you can do as I do and buy a polishing kit for a dremel or by hand. I’ll start with the dremel. Use the fabric wheel and add a little of the red fine compound. Turn the dremel onto a medium speed. Put the length of the awl needle against the spinning wheel with the point in the direction of the spin- DO NOT go in the opposite direction. I tell you this because I like my eyes and I’m sure you like yours too. Turn the awl in your hand. You’ll see a little gray begin to appear in the red compound. This step only takes a few seconds. Switch over to a felt tip. I prefer the small wheels but a bullet tip will work too. Here you can switch over to a white or super fine compound OR you can just put a little bees wax onto the tip. I run this until I see no more gray coming off into the felt. It takes only a few seconds. After doing this the needle will shine like a mirror.

You can polish buy hand with a commercial polishing compound and felt. Or you can polish with a little beeswax and baking soda. You need a little grit to get the polish going. Rub some bees wax onto a piece of felt or soft cloth, sprinkle a small amount of baking soda onto the cloth. Hold the cloth between thumb and forefinger and fold it over the business end of the awl and rub. It takes a little long and it will shine like a slightly older mirror, but it gets the job done.

I’ve found the combination of these 3 things make my awls cut through stacks of paper like butter. In short you can go through pushing through 20 sheets of paper to 40.

Expanding Pocket Hedgehog

Based on a recent discussion thread on the HedgehogsForever group I decided to try my hand at making a hedgehog with expanding pockets inside instead of pages. It went reasonably well.

The  experiment with the expanding pocket notebook was to see how hard and how long it would take me to make one. The results are cool but they take forever and are complex to make as well. There are a lot of steps one could foul up. And of course the one I made is good, but I fouled up in 2 spots- first I trimmed the cover too small and secondly I made the pockets a smidge too small for what I wanted to do with it- keep my jotters in it in my bag. I forgot to add ¼ inch to the dimensions to make it work correctly.

I used stiff cowhide for the cover, backed it with my favorite paper of all time- a green Japanese paper with a screen print of clouds. I love it. I used cardstock for the pockets, folded and scored them to open out to a pocket ½ in wide. It worked well. From the outside the pockets look just like a regular hedgehog. I made the pocket 3 inches deep instead of 3.5 to keep the size of the pocket true to a hedgehog.

IF I were able to fit my jotters in it comfortably I would certainly use this experiment, but as it won’t fit them I’ll keep it kicking around for awhile. I’ll figure something out for it.

recap of this week in the studio

Phew it’s been a busy week here at Comfortable Shoes Studio. I’ve been crazily busy with the DayJob as well as in the studio. Yup, fresh new books. I’ve got a stack of graph paper jotters, a group of cardstock hedgehogs, a couple of kraft paper hedgehogs and a 100% cotton hedgehog all headed for etsy.

I’ll post links to etsy when I get them loaded up. I’m pretty excited to get some leather books back up to etsy, it’s been awhile and the recycled notebooks seemed to be taking over my shop. While I was in the studio I cut several large notebook sized covers from this chunk of sleek black cowhide I’ve got, they will be fantastic with either white or red stitching…. Keep an eye out for those too. I’m going to work on designing the spines today.

Here are some pics to occupy you until then:

Yes, that is graph paper

Staples Paper Review

I decided that I would do some testing of the new Staples brand paper, which I have from a reliable source is manufactured for them by a major paper brand. (I’ll do a post on that soon.) So I tested the 3 papers I wrote about in my previous post here.

The first paper I tested was Staples brand 65lb coverstock. It’s thick, stiff and smooth. It’s quite enjoyable to write on, accepts all inks well without noticeable feathering or strikethrough.

The next paper was the Staples brand 5 squares per inch graph paper. As much as I don’t like to sew it up into a book I was surprised at how much I liked writing on it. The paper is very lightweight, very smooth and takes ink well. I noticed a little feathering with the fountain pen and the Staedtler liquid point. There was also a lot of strike through with most pens, however the following pens showed little to no strike through- Uniball Jetstream- all colors and the space pen. The thicker pens with more liquid ink had more strikethrough.

The next paper was the Staples brand 20lb paper in cream. I found little strike through on the paper with the exception of a red liquid ink pen in .7mm. I should check it out with a thicker fountain pen and see what happens. Again I was pleasantly surprised at how nice this paper was to write on. While not the same experience as a Strathmore 100% cotton it as a very nice feeling paper with all the pens. The fountain pen ran smoothly over the surface and the more fluid inks didn’t feather, with the exception of the red ink, which gives even the thickest of papers trouble.

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality and enjoyability of the Staples brand paper. I found the coverstock to be more pleasant than some of the other cardstock I've used for hedgehogs. All papers were listed as acid free on the package.

PIpe Clamp Book press

The book press below might not be pretty but I'm sure it's plenty serviceable and would give anyone the amount of pressure they need to press up a few hedgehogs. I found it on this website.  And it's currently for sale.

It's made from a pipe clamp- readily available from any woodworking store or big box building store like Home Depot. Most pipe clamps can be bought in the pieces and you then buy the pipe to mount the clamping pieces and the system works through leverage. After sliding the top clamp into place you then screw the turn screw to create the tight pressure. Because you can buy pipe in any length this is a great design to work with- the only limit to the stack is how high you want to go. I wouldn't suggest going over 16 inches, but that's a lot of books. Hurrah for a binder thinking outside the box and making something that works, is relatively inexpensive and provides more than enough clamping pressure for the home binder.

3X5 cards/GTD/ Wausau and Staples

This one is for all you GTD addicts and Hipster PDA users. I was at staples today and I found Hipster PDA 3x5 card wallets, completely ripped off from the Levenger’s pocket briefcase. Featuring black and brown leather and a seemingly decent quality. They also have business card wallets that I couldn’t resist.

I can't find a link to the Staples version of the 3X5 card case but trust me, it looks JUST like the Levenger case. Probably a lesser quality but still very nice. It retails for $14.99. They had a bunch of other snazzy accessories, notebooks and portfolios. All coordinated in colors and designed to look good on any desk.

*warning Paper geekiness below!

In bookbinding news, Staples has discontinued Wausau's pastels paper in favor of their own line of paper. The Staples paper is also acid free BUT it only comes in at 20lb, Wausau's paper was and is 24lb. But Staples now has acid free pastel colored cardstock @ 110lb and wonderfully coverstock @ 65lb. Here's my one issue with the I would be fine with the change if the Staples brand was in a comparable weight but its 4lbs less, which makes one hell of a difference when writing with a fountain pen.I bought a package to test out and see what it's like but I'm not holding my breath. What I am excited about is the coverstock. I've been looking for a decent coverstock for age that was both cream in color and acid free most brands do not make it. Usually it's bright white and not acid free. I would suggest that thus far the range of papers they are introducing isn't comparable to Wausau but Hammermill and because of the acid free labeling on the Staples paper I"d say thus far they are beating them out.

Have I mentioned how much I dislike change?
* a quick check online shows that the Wausau paper is available online, in the colors I use (IVORY) even cheaper than I had been buying it in the stores. So I'm wondering if they are getting rid of all their stock and I'll never find it again.

I just finished 2 new Books

I just finished making these 2 new hedgehog notebooks. They came out really well, just over 1/2 inch thick, filled with 100% cotton paper, in ivory. These are sewn up like a moleskine, stitched and then sewn all by hand. The leather is distressed sheep hide in brown and black.