Dr. Craftenstein: Leatha Notebook, Midori Style

Have I mentioned my addiction to notebooks and lists? I will find any excuse to get more notebooks, so that I may fill them with lists. Today I wrote "Blog" on a post-it note so that when I'm done posting here I can scratch it off. It's a sickness.

So during my leather journey, I have been guided by the lovely and talented Ian Atkinson from Leodis Leather. His videos are great. And he has one called:

I ordered the pattern off his Etsy shop, purchased a flat sheet of veg tanned leather from Michael's, and yes, decided this was a GREAT EXCUSE to order Moleskine notebooks off Amazon. Hooray!!

I stamped and tooled it up, dyed it, then used his pattern to place the holes and rivets and elastics, and here it was on Monday when it was done, with the elastic closure pulled across:

Let's talk about the dye. I used Fiebings Saddle Tan, which seemed way darker than I had expected. Also it's blotchy because I did not apply the dye evenly and should have probably gone over with another coat to even it up. I was disappointed with myself. That was Monday...

BUUUUUUT, check it out today, four days later:

The dye has lightened up to the EXACT color I was expecting, AND the splotches evened out. It's better than I could have hoped. Way to go, Fiebings!! I WILL NEVER DOUBT YOU AGAIN.

Here's the interior:

The elastic loops through the rivets on the spine to hold the two notebooks inside, which is really tricky and I had to watch Ian's video while I did it. But it works great.

You can see in the above pic that I added holes to the back cover for my skinny Cross pen that I have had for ages and have no idea from whence it came. Ian had suggested adding a pen holder, and I skipped that part. But after one day of using this thing with no pen holder I became homicidal, so I punched the holes as soon as I got home.

Ian also suggested adding bookmarks, which I did by tying some leather cord in the top hole:

I love this notebook holder, and I plan to make lots more of them. So many N.U.T.S.A.C. Agents to outfit....

And in Drunken Basket Weaving news: A couple weeks ago I grabbed one of my leather remnants, jammed holes in it with an awl, and used it as a basket base: