Caught Up Yet Behind

Santa arrived early at my door (along with another 8 or so inches of snow) - a sweet treat from my sweet cousin and a reminder that I've done nothing toward Christmas preparations, save for the turkey breast bought early and stashed in my freezer. The plan was to at least work on cards over the weekend but I was also determined to finish the book challenge first.

And I did at last, only a week late! The stitching of the signatures was going really well when I noticed I'd be running out of thread before the back cover could be secured. I wasn't the only one with this issue and several theories surfaced, including that the original example from the teacher had two less rows of that chain stitch so her directions for figuring how much thread to reel off may have been based on that rather than the directions she gave for punching the additional holes. I partly blamed my shortage on the heavier and waxier thread I used. At any rate, she'd shown us how to add thread using a weaver's knot so all is not lost.

Except that I couldn't get the weaver's knot to "snap" and hold the thread the new length was being added to. I tried several times, even getting out a photocopy I'd taken from a library book showing several useful knots. I had to laugh that at the end of the instructions for the weaver's knot, it said that if you couldn't get the knot to hold, just make a square knot. So that is what I did. A little messier but since this is a book I'll be using, I really don't care, especially since it is in the last signature of the book. In the picture you can see I remembered a couple of helpful things when sewing in signatures: 1) use finger cots on thumb and second finger to help pull the needle through - there's always a bit of tug of war, and 2) clip the next signature to be sewn to the previous signature to keep it from flopping around until you get a few stitches sewn into it (lower left).

There it is, all neat and tidy from the outside. One problem though . . .

I tend to tighten my stitches quite a bit because of a disappointing experience where I was not careful about that and ended up with a wobbly book. However, too tight and the covers spring open. Not equally this time, and with a little pulling and jiggling I was able to even up the amount of spring front and back and think the rest will resolve as I use the book.

The book was designed for the addition of tabs. I didn't really think I needed tabs for the way I plan to use this journal, but as long as the covers were sized to accommodate them and I had some of the cover paper leftover to make a few, I went ahead and added them.

 cover measure 5.75 tall x 4.75 wide

So there we go, all done, and I'm already collecting the bits of paper I've scribbled thoughts and quotations on that will now be transferred into this book. Not done in 5 consecutive days nor even 5 non-consecutive days, yet done within a two week period where life managed its usual intervening. Pretty pleased with that and now onto the holiday preparations and binding the Peace quilt.