Most of the time, when I post photos of my work on this Web site, you see my finished projects. But the reality is that at all times, I have multiple WIPs (works in progress), scattered on various flat surfaces in the kitchen. I find, in fact, that I’m unable to work on one project at a time. It’s just not in this girl’s makeup! So today, much like a Weight Watchers® member, I’m going to report exactly the way things are as of this moment. I won’t show you a photo of the finished dual stack of fingerless gloves that were completed last week, nor the completed drawer of mini books that need to be photographed and listed on Etsy.
Today was Glue Day. I dug through my rectangles of chipboard and printed papers that make up the covers of my handmade books, and started adhering them together.
Once this step is completed, it is absolutely necessary to give them time to dry. The covers never dry flat without pressure, so I use the paper press that my husband made for me from two bamboo bread boards. This tool gets a lot of use!
Tomorrow, when the covers are dry and flat, I will match them up with their inside pages. These are stacked on the acrylic rack below. There are all kinds of books here—the beginning of an Internet password book, a couple of lined journals, a Save the Date notebook, blank books, a couple of Creative Ideas Accordion Notebooks, and several half-finished mini clipboards.
Before I bind the books, I round the corners of the covers and pages, sand and ink the edges of the covers, and then punch holes in both covers and pages. Then the owire is added and the book is bound, the covers get decorated (usually with a flower), and it’s time to photograph the books. They look like the photo below once all of these steps are accomplished. Okay, I fibbed a bit . . . I guess I can’t complete this post without showing you something that is actually finished.
What’s on your work table today?
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What’s on my table? A custom order for 48 fabric-covered journals that I have grown to hate. (My serger is giving me fits–upper looper keeps coming unthreaded. Not a good time for a machine fail.) I may miss an expected ship date, and I try never to let that happen. Up until 4:00 am — slept until 7:00 am.
On my worktable are little crocheted fish! I have one more to go and then I’ll be done with this special order!
That’s great that you can do a production line of your books — with crochet, as you know, everything pretty much has to be made individually from start to finish. So I have WIPs going on all the time too — I can’t stand to work on one thing continuously!
That cutting board press is brilliant! And I see the acrylic display rack is in use! Seems that we talked about that some time ago!