A Book a Day? What's Up With That?


Hi, and welcome to this year-long project. So what's this all about and how did it happen, you might ask. In mid 2007, artist Noah Scalin decided to make a skull out of anything he could find, every day for a year. It stretched him in ways he never imagined, as an artist, a writer and a person. His experience turned into a blog that went viral, and then a book.

Others have picked up on the idea: 365 Hearts, 365 Masks, 365 Bears drawn on a cellphone, 365 paper napkin mustaches.
I wanted to play, too, and I chose books. I love books, I know a bit about making books (thanks to my talented book-maker sister, Marilyn Worrix), and they're broad enough in definition to give me a lot of creative leeway.

The whole point is not really the books. The idea is to stretch myself in many ways as an artist and a person, to set up a discipline, stick with it and see what that teaches me.

I hope you'll join with me and follow along on the journey chronicled here, and let me know what you think.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Book 182 - A Navy Leather Mini Journal - Fat Journal

Time for one of my standby leather journals. I had this lovely piece of dark blue leather, but it was quite small. So... a mini-journal. The book measures 3"x3 1'2" x 1" at the spine. This little book has great depth and feels substantial for all its small size. The hand-torn pages are 70 lb. cream Neenah velvet finish paper. It's one I love the feel of and it has a nice weight. Eight signatures, six sheets each, 96 pages (192 both sides).

The exposed binding is the longstitch done with waxed linen thread in a dark plum/brown. I crossed the threads on pairs of signatures for added interest.

Really a sweet little mini-journal.




5 comments:

  1. Love this one too!! I picked up some leather from a scrap bin to make a journal. Before I jumped into the leather, I did my first long stitch on an Annies Peace Pasta box. It actually turned out ok, but I need to judge my number of signatures better cuz it feels like it's not "full" enough (of paper). Do you stack your signatures tight together? Do you have a suggestion to help decide the correct number to use? Thanks for all your inspiration...I'm really having a lot of fun trying different techniques!

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  2. Cheryl - The number of signatures and the number of sheets in each sig can vary with the thickness of paper and the look I'm going for. I usually start with 36 sheets, 6 sigs of 6 each. Once the pages are folded, I just go by "feel." If I want a "fat" journal like this one, I add pages. It's not an exact science. I make my holes as close together as possible for the size to keep the pages tight, but you will always end up with a small gap between the holes. That's one reason I'm liking the slotted spine longstich more and more. It eliminates that gap. Good luck with the leather.

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  3. Donna thank you so much for the quick response. I don't think I've put my holes close enough together.....going by "feel" is a great way for me to start thinking about this. Think I will play around some more before I attack the leather....again, thank you....it really did help!

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  4. Love the blue leather and that this little journal is so nice and fat! I, personally, love your leather journals just as much as the recycled paper ones. :)

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