My Journal Begins

I got my book assembled today. Apart from trying to remember how to stitch the signatures together, it went fine. There’s a tutorial here and another one here if you want to see how to do it. As far as I can tell everyone stitches just a little bit differently. The Coptic binding is exposed showing off the interesting stitching and it opens flat. It’s also a little bit loose no matter how hard you try to get an even tension. That really helps when you are adding collage elements inside. To make even more room, I added some spacers cut from some of the paper. These can come in handy to attach items to or punch holes and thread in yarn or whatever.

The journal cost me around $12 for the two pads of 9” x 12” paper. One was 140lb. watercolour paper (on sale!) and the other was a grayscale selection for dry media in a similar weight. I folded the pages in half to make a 6” x 9” book with 8 signatures. I used the pads’ backing boards for the covers (cut to size slightly larger than the paper) and the front pages with printing on them for the inside covers and a pocket in the back. The front and back boards were covered with pieces of my paste paper and glued with PVA glue then weighted down overnight between waxed paper. My thread was black waxed linen and for the first time I tried stitching with a curved needle which was much easier to use than a straight one.


I’m quite happy with the results. Now I need to use it! That’s much harder for me than making the journal itself. I’m always afraid to “mess it up” but I’m determined to get over that “precious” thing and just have fun.

What else? I finally started another pair of socks. I swear that was the longest time for years not having socks on my needles! A whole week. Whew. These ones are for granddaughter Princess Pink and I’m using up the hand-dyed leftovers from the Purple Passion socks that I made in August for my sister-in-law. Since PP’s mom liked the ruffles I made on a past pair of girly-socks, I’m including them and then going into the double lace rib that I used on the Purple Passions. So far, so cute! Not enough knit yet though to show off. And I’ve been too busy to touch my Seaweed Shawl or the Bronze Ribbon Scarf or even to carry on with the weaving on my loom.