Cover Me

I’ve been a fan of Field Notes and their aesthetic for a bit, but find myself writing physically less and less (my handwriting has always been terrible anyway, but I do scratch notes and like to sketch). Maybe if I made my own little cover, it’d inspire me to carry the things around and get back into practice.

Continuing to build on this leather thing, and combining skills I’m picking up:

• Designed from scratch in Illustrator


• Adapted an idea found here for diamond-shaped holes, but made my own to a size and shape more like actual diamond punches


• Found and adapted an Illustrator script to lay out objects along a path


• Cut a card stock mock-up for fit and alignment before committing to leather


• Etched and applied a couple of my acrylic stamps


• Played with natural dyes - made acorn pigment, but could not get the leather to take it, even with an alum mordant. I’ll have to keep trying that, but went with dark-roast coffee and finished with a bit of olive oil


• Ditched the speed-stitching awl and figured out the double-needle method

It’s getting there.