Finish It Friday

If you tuned in on Tuesday you saw the lovely tutorial for making a simple coptic notebook. (Yes, I know I am posting this on a Saturday, but Friday was soo busy with getting other things like, oh..IDK…Laundry…that it’s a day late..sorry.)

One or two of the tools were the awls and needles used in punching holes and pulling thread…well dear readers, my friday was busy with finishing up some tools for the job…I put myself to work fixing and making new awls. To small and two longer length. The pairs are a regular awl made from a sewing needle, and a leather awl from a glovers needle. the handles are just regular turned wood bits from a craft store. the two unstained ones are unfinished just for reference in the pictures. the finished pairs are inherited from my mom, who had them set up for bobbin lace..a skill I have never retained past the pillow making faze… They made great awl handles tho…the two long needles are what I use to stitch the gatherings together into a book…some say they are too long..but I find that the longer types are easier to get between the gatherings without pricking my fingers. I drilled the holes carefully with the teensy littlel drill bit that you can see sitting on the handles of the flat nose pliers in the first pictures. There isn’t any glue holding the awls in the wood, instead I used some of the many broken needles as pins driven in to hold them secure..that tiny pinprick of light is the pin in the second picture. I keep most of my needles in the hard cover needlebook which is under the awls and needles in the third picture, all of which are sitting on my leather pounding board…which is just a cutting board from home despot bolted to a hunk of wood to save the surface of whatever table I am at from being scratched. In the second picture you can see the new shiny clean side as I turned it over and rebolted it to the hunk of wood…after 10 years of being used as a leather working surface, it was high time to do so. Tools need not be utilitarian, beauty in a simple thing makes the world a tiny bit nicer..I like my tiny corner of the world…where I get to make beautiful things.

Tutorial Tuesday

As you may have noticed my dear readers I have two blogs. One for my ball jointed doll hobby and this one for my medieval lifestyle. I have implemented new titles for the work week to keep me on an even schedule for posting on both blogs, dear readers and today, is Tutorial Tuesday! The day of the week that I present to my readers a tutorial to aid them in their search for nearly authentic bjd, or medieval accessories.

Today I bring to you a lovely basic tutorial for making a hand bound book. The very first thing one should have besides a quill and pot of ink is a book to write their adventures in. The earliest books were bound using the Coptic Stitch, so named for the Coptic peoples of Egypt who put their knowledge in books rather than the old way of scrolls, so dear readers without further rambling, here is your tutorial:

A little heart shaped book

For a few years now, I have had a tiny little project sitting in a box waiting for me to finish gathering documentation for that far off moment that I put it on display at some Arts & Sciences event. A little heart shaped book, filled with chivalry, poetry and knightly ceremony and of course illuminations from beginning to end…I even have the blue velvet ready to be turned into the embroidered cover all cut out. I just have not had the gumption to get to work…Well, Today I am turning that around and making it my second priority just behind making doll clothes for sale on my site. There isn’t any excuse, I mean, writing is one of those things I absolutely love doing…but lately have found little joy in..so I will now be going from book to book, making copies of relevent pages and getting my documentation written up…then the writing of the makers diary for this little heart shaped book can happen…In the mean time, I must have patience, because if I rush this, or leave out a step someone judging it might catch me up…and that would be very embarrasing. I won’t go through the pain of a Kingdom A&S and leave myself open to what happened last time. That horror story is in the past…and no, I won’t repeat that experience for all the AOA’s in existance…Preparation is Key…and this time, not one stone will be un-turned, or a single book unread and put in the bibliography…My research will follow the required course and style for my new kingdom and my citations will be right where they should be. Start to finish.