get ready for ranty times

Oh my gosh you guys why did you not wish me enough luck on my leather journey?!  IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT.  But I will let that mystery and your guilt grow while I show you all the fun stuff I did all day until the MYSTERIOUS BAD PART THAT IS YOUR FAULT happened.

Okay so this is the book that we are covering in alum-tawed.  The thing that is incredibly cool about this book is that we are doing it in an older historical style--like, 1500s historical.  Turns out in olden times books were  AWESOME.  See those red squares marked in the corners of the cover board?  Okay so we are doing some WEIRD board shaping this time, because they did a lot of weird stuff in olden times because their boards, instead of being, um, boards, they were big ol' hunks of wood.  So, to shape our boards in imitation of the way medieval monks used to shape medieval hunks of wood, we are beveling down the board along the edges, between the red squares.  Also the inside of the boards are beveled all the way around. And it's not the usual kind of bevel sanding we do in fine binding, because usually we do it all soft and rounded and as perfectly smooth as possible, but here we are trying to make it like a hard line, like a chisel cut.  It is a totally different aesthetic than anything I've ever done and it turns out I LOVE IT.

Also, you notice that there are five strips of alum-tawed?  Okay, so I only sewed this on 3 strips--the other 2 are what I sewed the headbands on.  Usually you sew the headbands on like a piece of cord or something, but for these we did it on a strip of alum-tawed just like we sewed the book on, and the CRAZY part is that then, instead of cutting off the cord at the ends of the headbands like normal-town, instead we LACE THEM INTO THE BOARDS.  ...Okay, I realize that maybe your MIND isn't being BLOWN by this, but trust me....this is HUGELY COOL and totally unprecedented in my brain.  I mean, I did this all several hours ago, and now sitting here thinking back on it I am still just BLOWN AWAY by how great it is.  I, I, I just can't say with words.  I just love how everything is tied together, everything is so strong and compact and connected. It just feels RIGHT.  So.  This is me, bearing my testimony of laced-in headband cores.  They are the shiz.  I know that with every fiber of my being.

Oh gosh, after all this happiness about bad-a medieval book structures, I can't even muster the rage to blame all y'all for what happened when I was paring the dang alum-tawed cover.  You guys, remember how in the comments you were all like Oh boo hoo Katy you monster you are making  a book out of Wilber and Babe and probably Babe's mom too? Yeah, well, the pig skin does not need you to fight its battles.  It is doing just fine on its own.  It is mother of all thick and toughness, so unlike goat which like, leaps onto a book without you lifting a finger, or even calf that's like well ok I guess I'll help a sister out, pig is just a big mean jerk that's all like, oh, you want to pare me?  That's funny. How about you try to do it with your spoke shave?  Oh?  What's that?  The harsh brutal fibers of my flesh foil your spoke shave and reduce my edges to a raggedy, gouge-y mess?  Huh, interesting.  Don't worry, you can still salvage this. Why don't you try to do it all by hand with your paring knife?  That seems like a good idea.  PSYCHE!  I will lull you into a false sense of security as you thin me out over the course of TWO HOURS, at which time I will suddenly develop another case of gouge-itis and have there be rips and holes everywhere you turn, especially at all the places where the leather is critical and it is impossible to fix it.  NICE TRY, LOSER. Come back when you're ready to be GOOD AT THIS.
...and then it took my lunch money, dissed my mom, and kicked me in the shins. 

So. Tomorrow I will show it to Don and have him confirm that the damage is irreversible, and then I will start again on a new piece of frigging alum-tawed pig skin.  The silver lining: I can still use the shizzed up leather to cover a book, as long as it is smaller.  So, that's convenient.  Also, I was pretty far ahead of the rest of the class all day today, so this stupid set-back will really just put me even with everyone else.  And the silverest lining of them all is that now I am back home safely in bed and I can watch my saved up tv shows in peace, while trying to imagine that pigs don't exist.  Also: maybe I will walk into class eating bacon tomorrow morning.  Use some intimidation tactics of my own.  Show this dead pig who's boss.