Driftwood Journal
20x 12 x3.5 cm., 128 p.
Cover: White walnut, hand-carved, unfinished
Endpapers: None
Block: rice paper, 32 24×20 cm. sheets torn from a 20 cm roll, quarto
Stitching: Kettle stitch in indigo linen cord
As rustic as this book is, it shows leveling up of my skills in several areas. It’s my first exposed spine stitching built on a stitching frame rather than juggling the lose text block (it does make a difference!), first trimmed block (not… well, as the close-up shows, but it is a thing that I have done now, and I’ll get better), first set of covers that I hand-split from a thicker piece of board (you can see the book-matched grain if you look closely).
I like it. It’s a nice size to hold in the hand, it’s substantial. Because the cover’s so sturdy, it will make a good field journal, and it will wear and age in interesting ways.
The rough corners make me think of driftwood, and the braided carving on the cover, which I think started out as tree branches, became water channels. When I run my fingers over them it feels like sand running through my fingers at the edge of the ocean.