More Pockets!

I finished pocket construction last night, and only after I had finished did it occur to me that pocket folding would be a great tutorial... Maybe in the near future I'll work getting that together. Right now I present you with 75 folded pockets from 19 different sheets of paper. The two that I think are my favorite happen to be right next to each other, they are the white with pink cherry blossoms, and the pink & brown stripes. I love how the lines meet up perfectly even though there are two flaps making up the pocket!

The next step in pocket construction will be cutting all the board needed to get ready for case construction. I got a third of the board cut this afternoon. The cutting starts with finding the grain along the parent sheet. The direction of the grain is very important in every step of bookbinding, and everything in bookbinding has a grain to it. Finding grain on book board or mat board means taking the whole sheet and flexing it back and forth, this is easiest when the sheet is still whole in a big sheet. Once I find the grain I take a pencil and mark the grain direction every few inches so once it's cut into smaller pieces I'll always have the grain direction market.

Once I've found the grain it's time to get the board on my table and get it measured to size. I've never met a bookbinder who enjoys cutting mat board by hand as it's a chore. My mat cutter is on the fritz, but I would still say that using it is still cutting by hand as it's still a lot of work. However that's a conversation for another day, today is about making pockets! Today I cut one sheet down into 28 squares that will make up the case and the base that the pockets rest on.

I started by cutting the board into long strips that were then cut down further into squares. I plan on cutting one sheet a day for the next 2 days until I have all 75 squares that I need. As I said I really don't enjoy cutting board and it wreaks havoc with my wrists so I try not to have marathon board cutting sessions. Once the board is all cut I'll sand all the edges so they are nice and smooth for the cloth to cover. I highly advise sanding board outside or with a painters mask on, it creates a lot of fine dust that hangs in the air.
Over the next two days I also plan to make a case in white, off white, black, and pink over the next few days to put the pockets against to judge which pockets go with what color book cloth.

Also on the work bench for this week are two custom watercolor sketch books for a client. She contacted me looking for a specific paper, and I was luckily enough to find a fantastic deal on it in Portland so instead of taking just one, she ordered a second for gift for a friend too! They are going to be Celtic Weave with just white thread so the stitching won't be as noticeable on the page. I'm actually really excited to get started on them as I love that sewing and I've never done it with the same colored thread. She also wants eyelets set in the sewing stations and I love playing with my crop-a-dile, so as you can see it's a very exciting project as well.

Not a big change but I made the pictures larger today, anyone hate it? The pocket pictures were so small you couldn't really see much detail at all.
And to make myself look like the biggest geek in the world anyone out there playing Animal Crossing on the Wii? I just picked it up and have been visiting a few Etsy sellers, I would love to play with any of you that have the game!