A Journal Cover Part II

We're back to the journal cover.  After the first night I skived the spine again and began tooling.

I decided to do a Celtic knot design around the edge with the "Triforce" from the video game "Zelda" in the center.  I really like the look of Celtic designs on leather.  You will find I do a lot of Celtic design in my work.  The only problem with these designs is that they are time consuming.  There is a lot of cutting and beveling involved.  But if you take your time it will look great.  Another thing about Celtic designs is that they are forgiving to mistakes.  If your lines don't match up perfectly or the widths of the lines are off it won't matter in the end.  After you cut and bevel all of the pieces it won't be as apparent.

This project called for the basic swivel knife cutting, and then beveling of the project.  One thing that is important, especially with Celtic designs is that you have bevel in order.  You need to find what would be the "lowest" point and then bevel those parts first.  Then working your way "up" bevel the next "lowest" point and so on.  You can ignore this but your design just won't look right.  While Celtic designs are forgiving to imperfect cuts it is not forgiving to poor beveling.  After I finished beveling I decided to use the background tool to fill in the space between the lines of my knot.  I'm glad I did this at it really gave the whole piece some more depth.    



When the tooling was finished I wet formed the leather to the book again to ensure it was shaped properly to the book.  As I mentioned in the previous entry, this step should have not happened until after I was done tooling and punching the holes.  Because I had to have flatten the piece out again only to have to wet form for a third time.  We learn as we go!

I finished off the piece with a cherry stain.  I really like this stain as it gives the leather an almost wooden look.
 

After that it is just a matter of using rubber cement to glue the lining leather to main piece of leather.  The large lining piece was cemented completely while the pockets were only glued along the very edge.  I let the piece sit over night so the cement would stick.  The next day I sat down and got ready to punch some holes.  Because I put the design so close to the edge, and I had to use a large hole punch, I had to be very careful.

I use a set of punches that screw onto a handle that is punched with the mallet.  You can also use a prong punch or a rotary punch.  I like the punch set because it gives you a lot of options and is the easiest in terms of stamina.  (The prong punch would be easier but it only does one size while punching four holes at a time.)

First I stropped my punch.  (Take some jewelers rouge and a small scrap piece of leather and rub the rouge on the flesh side of the leather.  Then take your punch and slide it at the angle of the blade of the punch while spinning the punch around.  Then take some beeswax and put the punch in the wax.  Doing this will make the punching go so much easier.)  I then began to punch.  You want to try and keep it as straight as possible.  The good news is that if you are doing a double loop stitch it won't be such a huge issue but it still is a good idea to keep it as straight as you can.  Punch away.  Every now and again strop and re wax the punch.

When I was finished I used a suede lace to finish it off with a double loop stitch.  After putting the journal into the cover I was really pleased with this project.  This marked the first project that I put together entirely from the scratch.  (I have put things together without the benefit of a kit but I always used a premade pattern.)  Here I did everything, pattern all the way to finish, from scratch.

Let me know what you think.

theslackjaw@gmail.com

Happy Crafting!