New year, new journal

My 2020 is very well documented in doodles for every day of the year. And I'm so glad I have it. In lockdown, everything was such a blur that even at the time it was helpful to know what we'd done the week or even the day before! It became an accidental almanac of the strangest year we'd ever had and also a gratitude diary. Only on a few occasions did I include the gloomy moments (the number 10 announcements don't count!)

2021, arrived with great expectations from all of us that it would be better than 2020... it didn't really turn out that way, did it? Coupled with being so much busier teaching and other work, than the year before, a daily journal, and even regular sketching fell by the wayside.

A lot of this 'other work' was arty, which has been brilliant! I've had work on a gallery wall for the first time (and sold some), I'm illustrating a book, I've run a few workshops, and completed a few commissions - looking forward to pursuing more of all of these in 2022!

This year, I'm going to juggle being busy with making time for my own art, so I'm jumping back on the daily doodling waggon!

I'm only going to use sketchbooks that I've made, it adds a nice element of being more connected, and here is my first one!

The cover is from a Freecycled book. I'm fact it's 2 covers, I thought it might be good to protect the edges with a wrap around cover.

The pages are from an old, unused sketchbook and the thread is from the dusty bottom on a craft box.

Ok, so I didn't measure very carefully, I threw myself into it and had a lot of fun making it, deciding on the size of the signatures, how to arrange them and how to bind them.

Roll on January 1st!

papers folded into folios and sorted into signatures

this book has 5 signatures, and I sewed the middle one first, in an attempt to make it balanced - which pretty much worked!

to align the stitches in the signatures and the spines, I made a guide. In theory you use an awl, but I've used a fancy screw hole puncher, that you'd use for leather. It didn't go all the way through all the papers so I used the hand awl to finish it off. This method gives cleaner holes and doesn't tear the paper.

The first two and last two signatures were sewn in in pairs, with the cord crossing over the times on each side.

the finished book!
there may be a video eventually, if I can work out his to load it!