It’s officially summer and I’m working on new products and designs and a few special, secret projects.  You may remember in my last post I mentioned some secretive, mystery projects and that I couldn’t spill the beans about just yet . . . well, I still cannot spill the beans!  Sorry! (Happy belated Canada Day!)

Anyways, while getting out in the garden to tame the mint a bit and stake my tomatoes, I find myself thinking about what is next.  This seems to be a good starting point for me, to get away from the studio and reminisce about my latest projects through the lens of intention rather than final product.  It’s always interesting to go through the process of creating something, but it’s also interesting to step back and look at what happened after the fact.  I like the idea of trying an idea a second or even third time to see what I’ll end up with and how different it’ll be from the first final product.  I guess I’m really just stating the obvious, as this is usually intrinsic to creativity, but I think it’s worthy of mentioning anyways.

Here are some of my garden-induced thoughts: I’m working out some new re-designs for hardcover books, that incorporate a bit of leather and some fancy paper by yours truly.    But I’m also contemplating my full leather journals and realizing that they’ve all been limp bindings/softcovers, no hardcover leather journals.

So, I put together a little collection of some of my favourite leather bindings, which I realize now really focus on the stitching along the spine.  Some of the bindings are longstitch/linkstitch, some are variations of this and some are totally made up by myself.  While it’s enjoyable and satisfying, it’s also a learning curve, and I do love a good challenge.