My travel book is drying in the book press. I started by sewing together the book block:
The spine.
The bookblock.
The case.
Each signature (section) is sewn to tapes. The tapes are then glued into the case and hold the book together. Because I'll be adding lots of stuff to my book, I needed to make the spine fatter than the fore edge of the book. To do this, I used a thicker binding thread to swell the spine and I added narrow pieces of thicker paper in the bookblock. The goal, when the book is complete and all the tickets, receipts, post cards and photos have been added, is to have the spine be the same width as the fore edge of the book. If the spine is wider than the fore edge, it will put strain on the spine and eventually damage the book. Fortunately, this book has lots of pages and I have plenty of room to add whatever strikes my fancy.
I cast on for the smoke ring tonight but there isn't much to show at the moment. I've done a purl row, knit row, purl, knit and now I'm ready to begin the pattern. I want to get a couple pattern rows done so I know what I'm doing before I leave my knitting books behind. I'm using a 24" circ. with Knitpicks new Options needles in the laminated Birch. So far, I give them two thumbs up. They're very glossy so stiches slide much more easily than I'm used to. They'll take a bit of getting used to but so far I really like them. Because the needles are laminated, they're much stronger than a plain wooden needle and so they're able to get nice pointy tips on them. I likes me the pointy tips! I ordered steel circs for sock knitting but I realized I probably wouldn't be able to take them on the plane. I placed another order for two 24" circs with size 1 Birch needles and I'm hoping they arrive tomorrow before I leave.
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