I finished up this large journal yesterday.

Height: 11 1/4"

Width: 6 1/2"

Depth: 2"

The leather was the back portion of a portfolio briefcase. It is a truly beautiful reddish/brown leather - the original holes from the stitching can be seen around all of the sides of the leather - but the back.

I stitched another piece of a vintage brown leather strap into the binding - and used it as the closure for the journal. The leather strap has been riveted and hand sewn onto the front and back of the journal - and I also hand stitched a straight line in olive green linen thread down the back - to keep the straps secured to the journal - the same piece of leather strap wraps around to the front and tucks under small pieces of leather sewn onto the cover. The small closure pieces have been used from the same leather for the journal - and I hand stitched them onto the cover.

The interior is heavy white paper - with chocolate brown Canson paper at the first and last signature (group of paper).

Back of the journal...

The work I did yesterday. . .

Taking apart some of my vintage leather finds - carefully cutting the thread - taking the pieces apart - salvaging parts - cleaning everything...

Lots of great pieces for future journals! But - WOW - it takes so long to take these things apart!!

Slowly and Carefully -

I even managed to force the metal rings apart - and take this metal piece out!

I removed these leather straps to use in my latest journal...

Here I am trying to figure out how to attach these straps. This journal has a great leather pouch on the front (it was from the front of a briefcase) - and I want the straps to close the journal - but also to keep this pouch closed - so nothing will fall out.

But - while I was starting to sew it on to the journal - I realized the stitching was broken at the bottom part of both pieces (probably just from use). Anyway, I was just going to fix it and resew in the areas that had been broken - but, that looked strange to only fix half of the strap - so, yep, you guessed it - I hand (re) stitched the entire strap. BOTH of them!

The one I have resewn is on the right - in mustard linen thread.

I actually love how it "pops" next to the color of the leather.

Getting started on my next journal -

I am going to leave this small square that had been cut through the leather (at the top of the leather piece) - and use it in the spine piece - so that the atlas pages will show through the spine!

Oh - here's a little journal I finished today - (I still have to take pictures) - anyway - I used this beautiful vintage piece of dark brown leather - that had this great circle marking (from the metal hardware that I removed) and this hole from where the rivet has once been. I wanted to leave the markings visible on the spine - so I designed the binding around these markings.

Here is the template - I am designing the stitching -

and figuring out where to punch the holes so that they are correct.

Okay, until tomorrow.