To finish up Case Bound Book Week—and January! already!—I have an old classic. I first paired this paper and bookcloth on wedding photo album for a coworker several years ago, and since then it’s been a favorite of mine.

The book is 5-1/2″ wide and 8-1/2″ high and about 5/8″ thick, with six sections of Mohawk Superfine 100lb paper (4 folios per section) for a total of 96 pages.

When The Paper Place came online last year, I was in paper heaven. It took a lot of restraint for me not to order everything. But I succumbed to a lot anyway. (This one is Chiyogami 647.)

The book is 5-1/2″ wide and 8-1/2″ high and about 5/8″ thick, with six sections of Mohawk Superfine 100lb paper (4 folios per section) for a total of 96 pages.

This one is a bit different for me. I originally bought the Chiyogami paper intending it for use as the inside of book covers, but with the red it reminded me of an old book so I went for it on the cover instead.

The book is 5-1/2″ wide and 8-1/2″ high and about 5/8″ thick, with six sections of Mohawk Superfine 100lb paper (4 folios per section) for a total of 96 pages.

I bought three full sheets of this paper several years ago at Kozo Arts, but no one ever seems to like it as much as I did. I still like it though. Playful and handsome at the same time.

Kozo Arts was a store on Union Street that sold handmade photo albums and journals and a selection of Chiyogami papers. They expanded to a second store in the Westfield Mall when it first opened, after we moved here, which was awesome because it was a lot easier to get to than the Union Street store—but I don’t think it was open for even a year. Last year they finally expanded to sell online, and I actually ordered paper from them rather than take the bus out there, but when I went to get the link for this blog post I saw the notice that they’ve closed the store. Disappointing.

The book is 5-1/2″ wide and 8-1/2″ high and about 5/8″ thick, with six sections of Mohawk Superfine 100lb paper (4 folios per section) for a total of 96 pages.

Book number three is using another new geometric paper. Next to the teal one, this is probably my favorite. If I filled more than one journal every two years, I’d keep it!

The book is 5-1/2″ wide and 8-1/2″ high and about 5/8″ thick, with six sections of Mohawk Superfine 100lb paper (4 folios per section) for a total of 96 pages.

Book number two is covered with an old favorit a calligraphic script, also from The Paper Place. I’ve used this a number of times for photo albums and I like its elegance. It’s a pretty good “Man Paper” (because my boss sometimes chides me for having too many flowery papers).

The book is 5-1/2″ wide and 8-1/2″ high and about 5/8″ thick, with six sections of Mohawk Superfine 100lb paper (4 folios per section) for a total of 96 pages.

The first book up this week is a new paper (for me), a geometric Chiyogami paper from The Paper Place in blues and teals and white that somehow I don’t think came from the Edo period. This one is totally my style, and that’s good, because I had a heckuva time pasting down the end papers and it looks like crap. I used a lighter paper than usual for the end papers and it’s all wrinkled and I actually tore it at the fold. So this will probably be my next journal or work notebook.

When I sewed the text blocks I didn’t yet know what I was going to do for covers, and so I didn’t attach the end papers to the first and last sections as I normally do (folding the folio around the back of the section and gluing it down on the inside, and then punching and sewing through it with the rest of the pages in the section). Instead, I tried this technique, attaching matching end papers to each completed book block once I’d chosen the cover papers. Structurally it is sturdy, as the block is attached to the boards via the tapes and the mull as well as the end sheet. But the opening action isn’t quite the same: because the end sheet is attached to the first page of the block, the page turns with it when the book is opened. It bugs me a bit.

The book is 5-1/2″ wide and 8-1/2″ high and about 5/8″ thick, with six sections of Mohawk Superfine 100lb paper (4 folios per section) for a total of 96 pages.

I haven’t made any books since November. I have a few photo albums that are waiting to be finished but I just haven’t felt like it. When I do so much of something under a deadline, it starts to feel like work and I burn out. Also, I’ve noticed that in winter I’m more inclined to sew or knit than make books. And it’s definitely winter in San Francisco—it’s been raining all week. Bleah.

So I haven’t made any books lately, but I do have books I haven’t posted pictures of yet, and since the rain let up yesterday just long enough to give me some good lighting, I now have photos. So I now declare this week Case Bound Book Week, and I’ll be posting books all week long. Just in case you thought this was going to turn into a sewing blog or knitting blog or something!

But before I get started, I want to talk about endbands. You may recall that back in October I posted a series small books with hand-sewn endbands. I’m still so jazzed about this that I’m going to show off some more.

These simple headbands from Headbands : How to Work Them by Jane Greenfield and Jenny Hille were really easy to make. The illustrations are clear and I only had to back things out a couple of times, and I made about 20 books. I like this look better than the bands I bought from Talas—the Talas ones are nice and they’re convenient, but limited in colors. By purchasing an assortment of silk thread I matched most of the books with complementary colors.

A couple of close-ups:

OK, enough of being pleased with myself. (They really were starting to get better by this point though. I’m happier with this set than the smaller books.) Stay tuned for the book parade, coming this week!

Before I started trying to make a dent in my fabric stash, I had a couple more unfinished projects lying around that needed attention: some knitting project bags. I bought the fabric in Portland last September and cut it out almost as soon as I got back. But then I needed interfacing, and template plastic for the bottoms, and then everything languished for a while. But, I finished them last weekend!

The first is from fabric by Alexander Henry. Not my grandmother’s knitting bag! The outside fabric is upholstery weight, and the inside is a quilting weight in the same style:

The bag started out as the Un-Paper Bag using directions from The Purl Bee. I actually made another bag using the Alexander Henry fabric following the instructions exactly about a month ago (I don’t have a photo because I gave it away as a Christmas present). It looked great, but I dreaded doing all that pressing again so I just made this one in a standard tote bag style.

I made two others, also from Alexander Henry fabric (at least on the outside) but with a different feel:

These ones are lined with a fun polka-dot fabric (I forget who makes it):

Why do I need so many knitting bags? I don’t. I had planned to use the green-and-white ones for Christmas gifts, and then never got around to making them. They’re pretty, but not exactly my style. But I wanted to finish them anyway. There’s always next Christmas!

Last night I started making a t-shirt from some of the white jersey in my stash. This weekend is all about sewing and watching Fruits Basket on Hulu.

I’m starting The Year of Making It Happen with a couple of strategies. The first is to finish all of my in-progress projects, and I’ve shared some examples of this during the last couple of weeks. My second strategy is to take stock of what I have, so I can plan for future projects. (My third strategy is to spend less time on the computer, but you can see how well that’s working out.)

Bookbinding, sewing and knitting are all hobbies which tend to lead to stashing. You buy paper, but it’s cheaper to buy some of it in bulk (for pages) and some of it just comes in large sheets. You buy yarn for a specific project without ever getting to it, and the same goes for fabric (and, for that matter, paper). Or sometimes you just fall in love with a material without knowing what you’ll do with it—and end up buying more than you might have, just in case.

I have great paper storage and last fall I went through a very productive run and worked through a lot of it. And I only have a few knitting projects worth of yarn stashed right now. But my fabric stash is close to becoming a problem. I have limited space to store it, just a few shelves tucked into the window sill of my studio:

Since that photo was taken last April, the shelves have become jammed full, even after moving the thread and notions elsewhere. So as my holiday break was ending, I spent an evening and took everything down and sorted it and measured it, and came up with the following spreadsheet:

… and so on for another 21 rows (and whatever comes in the next few days when my latest order from Fabric.com is delivered).

See any trends there? (I’ll give you a hint. In the 31 rows in my spreadsheet, black makes up 11 rows, red is five, and gray (in all its shades) is five.

Now that I know what I have and how much I have of it, I’m ready to compare it to the patterns and many Japanese pattern books that I’ve also been accumulating recently, and figure out what to use it for. And once I finish the few remaining unfinished sewing and web projects that are waiting for me, I’ll be ready to take on that stash.