Another Coptic Stitch Book

My obsession with paper has been well documented on this blog. I teasingly introduce myself in my bookbinding/paper classes as a paper whore. I hoard paper and will buy paper products just in case I might need something. Rather than create projects from the materials that I have, many times I will shop and buy new materials for a new project. The problem with this type of attitude is that my supplies start to multiply and there have been occasions where I have bought duplicate materials.

Unfortunately, not all paper is created equal. I have favorites. Some paper will probably never get used because I like it too much (I almost said "love" and realized how silly that would have been). Some materials will be saved for special occasions or for special people and I will gladly use those materials when the time arrives.

Yet, I have some materials that I have that I just don't realize why I bought them. I had one project that was for a friend's daughter who loves pink. As a matter of record, I hate pink but I have a surplus of pink book cloth and paper. When I am in these situations, I tend to use these materials for mockups or practice sessions.

I am making a mockup of a coptic stitch book. I was going through my stash of materials and came across these two papers. The brown bamboo pattern was a little too large for most of my projects but I think that it will be OK with this 6" x 9" book. I am using the yellow/orange striped Thai paper as a paste down on the interior of the book. Hopefully, the two papers won't look garish alongside each other.

Wolves

Just so that I can go on the record--I hate wolves. I have never liked them. I always viewed them as predatory animals that stole and devoured small dogs and children. When I realized that one of the themes of my artist's book swap was wolves--I cringed.

After some deep soul searching and lots of editing, I came up with these three paper cuts. I sure hope that my swap partner likes them because I certainly agonized over them.

Project Finished

Did you ever have one of those projects that just took forever to finish? The project was supposed to be a journal for a friend who asked for a handmade journal for his birthday. Of course, he told me that his birthday was the following week. The pages were Crane Letra and were sewn on tapes. When it came time to case the book in, I measured on three separate occasions to ensure that the boards would be the correct size. When I test-fitted the case, it was 1/8 inch short. The problem is that I didn't trim the signatures and decided to leave them as is. Or course, the boards would be too short.

I put away the project for a couple of days out of frustration. I've learned never to work on a project while I am frustrated. Usually in an effort to finish, I rush things and ruin materials--I can't tell you how many cases I have ruined with glue/paste stains because I was rushing.

I came back to the project the following weekend and measured again. This time I compensated for the extra width of the signatures only to realize that I misread the markings on my board trimmer. When it came time to dry-fit the text block--once again, I was too short.

I finally came to finish the book this weekend with the advent of the three day weekend. I measured, wore my glasses to check the markings on the board trimmer, and voila--I have a finished journal.

The end sheets are green Fabriano paper. The decorative paper is a marbled paper from Rhonda Miller whose work I absolutely adore. The book cloth is a green velvet paper that is lined. After all is said and done, I am quite happy with the finished product.