The perfect fit
>> Monday, February 1, 2010
I bought this pair of red leather pants at a thrift store in Athens, Georgia a few years ago. I never wore them, nor did I ever intend to. (Although Tony did try them on briefly and they fit surprisingly well.) Rather, I bought the pants to use as covers for Italian Long Stitch books. Now, years after the initial purchase, I am putting these pants to use.
I am making a series of books using pieces of the suede pants as the covers, and quite perfectly, the decorative leather strips seen in the first photo have become the ties that close the books. I've recently ordered some new book binding thread, so I am planning to make more of these mini leather books in different color schemes and using different papers for the interior pages.
6 comments:
How clever of you. All of your book bindings are so nice.
Thank you, Erin! And thanks for taking a look at my new blog too!
Part of me feels very sad at the loss of such fabulous red leather pants. Then again, you're putting them to beautiful use. I like your blog. It's so pretty!
Hi Naomi! Thanks for reading along. I've been having lots of fun putting together this blog so far. It's exciting to have a place to share a bunch of photos of what I've been working on.
You're not the first person who's said that about the leather pants. Tony's high school friend Bill saw a picture of the pants a while back and actually asked if he could have them because he liked them some much. (They probably would have fit him too.)
But I had been on the hunt for some new book cover material, and I just couldn't pass these up. And I think I'll be able to make about 35+ books out of them. I guess that's the struggle of using found objects. You have to decide if what you're going to make is going to justify the loss of the original material - a tough call sometimes.
Well, I have one of the little journals made with this recycled leather - I can confirm that the end result certainly does justify the re-use of the original!
The book is fabulous - the leather is soft, the paper is crisp and gorgeous, the section separators are great little pieces from old maps and the stitching is so attractively done, with an ivory (on my version) linen thread in an adapted long-stitch pattern. I love it!
Thank you so much, Lizzie. I am thrilled that you love your new book!
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