Leather Cover for Coptic Stitch - Part 1

This video tutorial shows how to cover the boards for a coptic stitch book and shows how to do pleated corners.

There are other ways to do corners but I've found that I like the pleated look the most. In the video I use a .08 oz leather but I've also used a deerskin before that was between 2 and 2.5 oz and it worked great for that too. I don't even own a paring knife at the moment, so ignore all those books that say you need to pare the corners of the leather when putting it on your book because in part two, I'll show you how to do the inside of the cover to offset the thickness of the leather.

How to Iron Leather

Need to get wrinkles out of leather?

Here's a video tutorial on how I get the wrinkles out of lambskin. We use this same method for cowhide leather as well.





If you have any other tips for getting the wrinkles out of leather please leave them in the comments.

Cord Bound Books -Part One

Would you like to learn how to make cord bound books? Throughout the month I'll be posting tutorials on leather work in bookbinding as well as how to do the cord bound books. The first step in any book is designing the book and gathering materials. You can see the beginnings of that below :)

I'm currently making two cord bound books for a woman named Lori. She's getting married in the Turks and Caicos Islands and she's using that as a theme for the wedding. The video below shows the Leather that will be used for each book (Aqua leather on the memory book and Gold leather for the sign in book) and it shows the stamps that will be used in the design on the cover and throughout the book. In the next video, I'll show the maps that will be used as endpapers and on the inset on the covers.



The books will be a little bigger than 9 x 12 as the pages were torn down to be 9" x 12", my husband Daniel cut all that paper down for me :)

The sign in book has 100 pages and the larger book has 200 pages (or 400 sides)

HUGE BOOKS! In fact, the memory book will actually end up being about 6-7 inches thick as I still have to put spacers in the spine. Maybe Lori will opt for two (still large and thick) memory books instead of the massive one?

Show this Weekend

I have so many excuses for not posting recently but really...there's no excuse. I'll do better. For all of you I have yet to email about the classes, stay tuned. I'll be posting more information about that mid December. For now, if you have a book style you really want to learn, please leave a comment and I'll take that into consideration as I'm setting up the workshops and classes. :)

This week I'll be in Utah County again. See the ad below and come visit me. This will be the last craft show of the year and probably for a while since I'll be teaching come January.

Check out my books this weekend!

Crazy Daisy Holiday Boutique
at Olson's greenhouse in Lehi
1133 N 3200 W, Lehi 84043

The boutique is November 12, 13 and 14th.
Which is this Thursday - Saturday
Open 9am-7pm

Santa will be visiting on Sat the 14th from 9:30am to 11:00am
They will also be taking donations for the Utah food bank.

I'll be in and out but I will definitely be there when Santa is!

The books from my Etsy shop (www.karleighjae.etsy.com) will be there, as well as new rustic leather books for $15!

Come and do some Holiday Shopping and Buy Handmade! :)