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.