Bound

I have been away this week, visiting my mother and Pat in their new house down in England. Last time I visited they had just moved in and most of their things were still in cardboard boxes, but now they are properly settled with the greater part of the house given over to making things of one kind or another. And in the spirit of making things I accompanied Pat on a bookbinding course – a workshop with Lori Sauer under the umbrella of BINDING re:DEFINED.

We made what Lori called a ‘Binder’s Wallet’: a portfolio for bookbinding tools. Now I don’t have many bookbinding tools, so my portfolio is intended to be more general purpose – pencils, scissors, and useful bits of paper – but I can see potential for other applications. Weaving tools don’t really lend themselves to the format, but sewing tools would, and I quite fancy it as a mini design portfolio too. And on my way home I paused at King’s Cross to meet with a friend who is busy with extreme renovations of the house she has just bought. When she saw what I’d made she immediately started planning a wallet of her own for carrying fabric samples, paint cards and pieces of ceramic tiles.

Here’s the one I made. A leather cover with a strap:

leather wallet

From the top:

leather wallet end

The pockets are made of roofing felt and held in place with carbon fibre rods.

felt pockets 1

felt pockets 2

And there is a thick felt page in the middle for needles.

felt insert

There are photos of the workshop on the BINDING re:DEFINED Facebook page. And here are some of the wallets in a gang at the end of day 2.

wallet buddies

I seem to have developed a knack for taking trains when there are massive delays (or there are just many more days when massive delays are an issue), but I got home eventually. And I do love the east coast main line on a sunny spring evening.

Firth of Forth

Bound” was posted by Cally on 22 April 2016 at http://callybooker.co.uk

Creative Commons License

3 Responses

  1. Sandra Rude
    |

    Looks like you and Pat had fun! And what a glorious view on your train ride home – scenery makes up for delays…

  2. MegWeaves
    |

    I am every so impressed with and envious of the precision of your cutting and sewing. Beautiful. Sigh.

    • Cally
      |

      I’ve hidden the messiest bits 🙂 It was a bit stressful using my mother’s sewing machine rather than my own – hers has all the bells and whistles, which gets me confused.