Random moosages as I see fit.

Journal complete!  Well, actually making the journal.  Not filling it out.  I actually haven’t started on that yet.

Anyway, you surely remember from last week that I joined another swap, this time for art journals.  I had mentioned that I was going to actually make my own journal as it was something I had never done before.  And tada!  I have!  The journal is fully assembled!

My first foray into Coptic binding wasn’t bad.  It’s actually super easy.  But since it was my first time, I’m not going to write a tutorial about it.  That would be silly.  I’d probably teach you all kinds of bad habits.  The tutorials I referenced to bind my journal were this one, which is nice since it’s a video, and also this one, which is nice for some of the details that weren’t very clear in the video.

Here are some pictures:

This is the rig I used to punch all the holes in my signatures. I used my old signals textbook to hold everything, a template for hole placement, and a giant push pin

Here’s the completed binding.

Things I learned doing this project:

• I really don’t like the tacky feeling the Mod Podge left on my covers.  It’s pretty sticky and just doesn’t feel very good.  Next time, I’ll probably just use the self-laminating stuff I use to finish off my postcards.  It’ll be just as protective and faster, since I won’t have to wait for stuff to dry.
• You have to pull the stitches relatively tight, BUT you have to make sure you aren’t ripping your signatures as you’re tightening your stitch.  I ruined one of my signatures that way.  Granted, my signatures were only one sheet and I was my second one in, but still.  Need to be careful.
• That being said, if you are binding lightweight paper or have very few sheets per signature, you probably don’t want to turn your needle before pulling the following string/twine/floss/thread/whatever all the way through as it increases the chances that you’ll tear the middle of the signature.
• You don’t need a curved needle to do this.  In fact, I didn’t even use a tapestry needle.  I was going to but then I took a look at my signatures and my covers and I decided I didn’t want to put such a large hole into them.  I used a beefier sewing needle that had an eye large enough for embroidery floss (I have a lot of it).