Art & Story Blog

14 Responses to “Moleskine Modification”  

1. 1 Maile Aug 25th, 2007 at 9:12 am

   Beautiful. Thanks for sharing your pictures and pointing back to Martha’s tutorial.

   Yes, would certainly like to have a Moleskine with good paper in it… Now I just have to work up the patience to do the mod.

2. 2 Lee-Roy Aug 25th, 2007 at 9:29 am

   Thanks, Maile! It’s my first. It’s totally functional, but I’ll probably do better next time. First thing, I won’t leave my watercolor paper rolled up for two weeks. I’m trying all kinds of things to get the curve out. Second, I could’ve folded the pages a little crisper. This would cut down on the thickness of the bookblock. Thirdly, the signatures are sewn pretty well, but they could’ve been sewn to one-another a lot more tightly. All-in-all, though, it’s a successful first run at it.

   I’d encourage you not to be shy and just go for it. Martha’s instructions are very good.

3. 3 Maile Aug 26th, 2007 at 5:29 pm

   How’d it work out for the Sketchcrawl? Do we get to see?

4. 4 Lee-Roy Aug 26th, 2007 at 10:07 pm

   Yup! Turned out just fine. I’ll post some results on Monday. Thanks for checking back!

5. 5 martha Aug 27th, 2007 at 3:09 pm

   Bravo Lee-Roy!

   Your book looks just great. Thank you for taking the photos and sharing them; it is really captivating for me to see others doing that project that I know so well. Isn’t it fun to make books?

6. 6 Lee-Roy Aug 27th, 2007 at 7:58 pm

   Thank you, Martha! I’m glad you enjoyed looking at the photos. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge and inspiring me to do this project. It is fun! Even though I took two semesters of “Books” when I was in college, I took LOTS of notes on bookbinding, but I didn’t do very much of it and/or never quite got the hang of it. I mostly focused on experimental books and letterpress printing broadsides and postcards. SO… it is really nice to get back into it and take it to the next step.

7. 7 mARTa Aug 28th, 2007 at 9:03 am

   I too have followed Martha’s directions for reloading a sketchbook with great results. I haven’t tried the moleskine daily planner yet but I like your idea of using the precut watercolor pages and then binding them. I am traveling to Europe for a month in October and might just take the paper and bind when I get home….I also loved all your photos! I think I will post a photo of the last book I bound as well.

8. 8 Lee-Roy Aug 28th, 2007 at 2:45 pm

   mARTa — Well, you’re giving me a little too much credit. I never said anything about binding the used loose pages into the book, so that was YOUR idea! haha! You get the credit! HOWEVER, I did actually have the thought to do that very thing at one time, but when it came time to bind the book, I forgot about it entirely. Thanks for the reminder. Now I wish I had. Oh well, maybe they’ll fit in the back pocket.

9. 9 Steve Sep 5th, 2007 at 12:54 pm

   Nice work! I wish I had the patience for this kind of project.

10. 10 Lee-Roy Sep 6th, 2007 at 9:03 am

    Thanks, Steve. I’m sure you could do this. I did it in about half a day or afternoon to early evening. What took the longest was acquiring all the supplies beforehand.

11. 11 livebird Sep 9th, 2007 at 11:30 pm

    Hi there, could the curve in the page be because the paper grain runs across the book, rather than parallel with the spine? If so, try that next time - it will help a great deal.

12. 12 Lee-Roy Sep 10th, 2007 at 12:03 pm

    Thanks, livebird. Good point. I’m pretty sure the grain is running parallel with the spine. Martha’s recommendations take this into account to help with folding. I definitely think the curve is from leaving the paper rolled up for too long. Plus, I accidentally used 22×30″ 300gsm paper instead of 22×30″ 200gsm — see my post here: http://blog.artandstory.com/2007/09/07/notes-on-materials-moleskine-mod — and I think this made the curve more stubborn. A lighter weight paper would have been more flexible.

    Thanks for your comment!

13. 13 Stephen Sep 10th, 2007 at 8:57 pm

    This looks great - it really inspires an interest in book and paper crafts.

14. 14 Lee-Roy Sep 11th, 2007 at 2:17 am

    Thanks Stephen! If I can do that, then it’s all the more worthwhile.

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