Books and more books

I love having a local book shop that knows you.  We often describe the coffee there as the most expensive in town, because we always come away with a book or two each time we have coffee.  Rosettas is a legend in Maleny, and is onto its third main owner (there was a short period in between two owners I recall so I think there have been four all up).

The last owner Anne always knew the sorts of books I would like; and never failed to find them a new home with me. The new owner Jan, seems to also have a sense of things, so I bought Rachel Hazell's  book "Bound" the other day.

Barry said - but can't you do all those bindings?  And I said yes, pretty much, but its nice to see a few ideas and if there's a gem in there it will all be worth while.

One rainy afternoon I sat down to read it from cover to cover, and found myself getting all enthused about making some journals.

I decided that given we are headed back to Scotland for eight weeks later in the year and maybe it would be fun to have a little book fill each week. I decided on the eight books I would try to make and happily whiled away some random moments in the studio making books.

And here they are.

A simple pamphlet stitch but using a ribbon - a good reminder of a simple stitch made a little bit more interesting.

I didn't know this one, and I like it!   The cut outs on the cover hold it together, and appear in the centre pages. I could think about better or different placements, length etc in future ones.

I've done this before but still, I like it - chain of pearls.  Pretty simple and yet rather lovely.

A chain stitch which I also like.

The Turkish Map fold.  This one will be interesting to fill!

The good old make a book from a single sheet of paper book.

This was also a fun one with slits and slots - unfamiliar but definitely worth doing again.

I didn't like the flaps flapping, so I trimmed them down and tucked them inside - much better and tidier.

This was supposed to be single running stitch, but I doubled back and did two runs so to speak (mostly because I did an odd number of holes when I should have done an even number!). You can always make something of your mistakes...

 And all together again. It makes me feel like holidays already just looking at them there. You can see I chose the same ink to decorate the covers - again, following on with suggestions from the book.

All in all, a great little reminder to play, have fun, try a few new things and just enjoy yourself.