A Journal Cover Part I

A few months ago I was travelling through West Virginia when my wife and I stopped in Berkeley Springs to get some lunch.  We had a little time to kill and we looked around the few shops downtown.  In one store I found a journal with a leather cover.  The design on the cover was one of those machine pressed deals where you crank the leather through and it embosses a scene onto the leather.  While it was a nice cover my initial thought was, "I could do better than this!" And that is what brings us here.

When I got home I promptly picked up a journal from a local bookstore and then began measuring out the sizing to make a cover.  After marking out the sizing on the leather I had on hand I discovered I was using leather that may be a little thick for this project.  Thick leather is not very conducive to a book cover.  My other issue was I didn't have a skiver or a type of lining leather to finish the project off.  I had to set aside the project until I had the right material and tools.

Fast forward to the other day.  I received my latest shipment from Tandy and it had the last few things I needed to complete the project.  So I measured out the project on the leather (I decided to stick with the thick leather as I now had a skiver and lining leather) and then I cut the main piece out.

 After which I cut the lining leather to cover the flesh side of the vegetable tanned leather and then two smaller pieces to be pockets.  Initially I was going to do a saddle stitch which, while strong, would have the edges exposed.  As you may be able to see from the pictures the edges are a little rougher than I would like.  Double loop stitch it is!

I realize now that I'm going to have to do some extra steps to make the piece look great.  I skived all the edges of the main piece then did extra skiving on the right and left sides to allow more room for the book cover to fit into the pocket.  I also skived two strips near where the spine of the book will be.  This is so the cover will bend a little easier when it comes time to form it to the book.

After the skiving was complete I wet the leather and then folded it over the book.  (NOTE: I don't recommend doing this step at this point.  I made a boo boo and wet formed it before I tooled the leather.  I wasn't thinking and when I tooled it I had to take it out of shape and then I had to wet form it again later.  It ended up not being a big deal and in the end it came out alright but it forced me to do some extra work I wouldn't have had to do if I had waited.)  It became apparent that the leather was probably too thick to begin with and I had not skived enough.  Regardless I continued to wet form the leather until it started to take shape.  As of right now the cover is 75% shaped to the book.  If I can get it to about 85% or more I will be satisfied.  At this point I let it sit over night folded over the book to help keep it's shape.  As you can see the cover holds it's shape fairly well.

That is all I'm going to cover for right now.  I'm currently working on the tooling of the project and I will put that in a second entry.  Hopefully I can do this in just two entries.  We'll see.  As always, send questions to:

theslackjaw@gmail.com

Until next time, Happy Crafting!