Sunday, March 19, 2006

Books and slips

There is something to be said for projects coming out damn near perfect. It adds to self-confidence and just makes me feel pretty good.

I’ve had several long-term projects that for whatever reason I’ve continued to put off until this weekend. I started them Friday and they are now more than half done. I’ve made a set of penslips and a stack of hedgehogs. I was unsure of the slips because one was for a renaissance journal, and the covers of those journals are soft. I figured out how to stiffen the slip and make it work for a soft covered journal. The slips also came out very good, if I do say so.

The other project is a stack of hedgehogs made to order with paper sent to me. Strangely enough we thought the cut size of the paper would be significantly smaller than a normal hedgehog, but it came out very nice. I as able to add extra paper to each book and have them be the same thickness as a regular moleskine. I just pulled 3 of the 4 hedgehogs from clamps and so far so good, they have come out great. Te leather is tight and smooth to the text block and my new stronger than ever hinges are working out better than planned. These hedgehogs, I will go so far as to say are some of my best yet. I have 3 more to glue and get ready his weekend and then I can call it quits on the for a few days.

That feeling of getting things done well, is great.