Notebook Cover (WIP)

[Mablung]

I am making a cover for my church sermon notebook, with a few different motifs on the cover. The tooling needs work simply because I need more practice (and some parts look atrocious). But, I’m kinda proud of it, so here it goes in the Show Off section. Even so, critiques and suggestions are always welcome, as I’m not very good with my hands and looking to improve this skill. 

[DieselTech]

Looks great to me Mablung. Nice work! 

What significant does the thorn reef play? What does it mean or stand for? 

Thanks.

[bladegrinder]

Jesus was wearing a crown of thorns when he was crucified, the spikes in the middle were used to nail him to the cross.

[Mablung]

 Bladegrinder's got it. I found that design online and traced it. Beveling the profile of the crown of thorns was substantially harder than I thought it would be, but at least you recognized the shape for what it is, @DieselTech.

[Mablung]

I’ll ask for suggestions on this part: I’m trying to decide whether to dye this thing. On the one hand, I kinda like the natural look, but on the other hand, a nice brown sounds nice, with some antiquing. I’ll use dark brown Ritza 25 0.8 mm thread to stitch the notebook cover sleeve panels and the perimeter. Maybe that will contrast nicely with the natural veg tan conditioned with Obenauf’s Heavy LP, which will darken the leather a bit anyway. 

[bladegrinder]

Yep, a light brown dye with medium brown antique would look good.

[DieselTech]

Yep I agree! Light brown dye with a medium to dark brown antique applied to it would look sharp. 

[Mablung]

Well, I dyed it light brown but didn’t dilute the dye enough and then ran out before I could get the dye job even. I used a dauber, since I don’t have a tub big enough or enough dye to dip-dye it. It’s a bit blotchy as a result and a coat of NFO didn’t even it out. I’ll probably have to make the overall dye job a bit darker before I resist and antique it. 

[Mablung]

Well, it is too bloody narrow for the notebook originally intended to go in it. 1/16” of an inch or so too narrow. I have another, smaller notebook that ought to fit and some margin around the edges that I could cut off to adjust for the smaller dimensions (and clean up my edging and stitching, which are a mess). I’ll probably have to do that for now. 

[DieselTech]

24 minutes ago, Mablung said:

Well, it is too bloody narrow for the notebook originally intended to go in it. 1/16” of an inch or so too narrow. I have another, smaller notebook that ought to fit and some margin around the edges that I could cut off to adjust for the smaller dimensions (and clean up my edging and stitching, which are a mess). I’ll probably have to do that for now. 

I have only used the fiebings pro dye a few times, but I noticed that the dyed piece/project seemed to be a slight narrower than originally cut after it dried. 

I'm wondering if the leather shrinks a bit from dying? I was dip dying.