A Pocket, a Pair of Jeans, and a Reading Journal Rebound

I usually keep my weekends for the people I love. They're for Terry, for family and friends, and for stepping back from the more administrative corners of running a business. But this past weekend, I felt the quiet pull to do something with my hands. Terry had his own projects and cleaning to tackle around the house, which left me a rare, open stretch of time. So I finally sat down to rebind my reading journal, a project I'd been circling for months.

It turned out to be exactly the kind of pause I needed.

A journal that outgrew itself

I've kept a reading journal for three years now. The first one lived inside an old planner I'd repurposed, never used for its original purpose, but perfect for tracking what I was reading. Last year, as I leaned further into reading challenges, readathons, and bookish communities, it filled up fast. By September I was down to my last few pages.

That's when a friend from my creative circles, who has made journals before, first helped me. Over a handful of video chats, she walked me through removing the cover and adding pages from an old notebook of the same size, stretching that beloved journal a little further. I went into this year knowing I'd need even more room.

And I did, but for a reason I didn't quite expect. As I added pockets and little extras, the signatures (the folded sections of pages) grew thick and unruly, and by the readathon I joined this past April, the whole thing was quite literally coming apart at the seams. My friend and I talked it through again, and she suggested separating the sections and spacing them out in a freshly bound journal so everything had room to breathe.

Then, like so many good intentions, the project got set aside. Other courses and projects, along with the work of opening this shop, took priority. (I'll admit I'm still a month or two behind on actually logging my books, though thankfully StoryGraph and a trusty spreadsheet have my back.)

What finally moved it to the top of the list was this week's Summer Reading Journal Workshop. I thought people might enjoy seeing a bit of the process and the journey behind a journal like this, and having a real, finished example to show felt far more useful, and far more me, than building sample spreads into the workshop booklets.

Going a little rogue

So, over the weekend, I dove in.

I started by separating the signatures. Some I broke down into individual sections so I could leave a little room between them for the pockets; others I kept in slightly larger groupings where I knew the bulk wouldn't be an issue. The most damaged folds got reinforced with washi tape, which I'm fairly certain isn't the textbook method, but it felt right in the moment, so I went with it. To support the more unusual spacing, I reinforced the spine with twine, then mapped out and carefully punched my sewing holes and began building the book block. Once it was sewn, into the book press it went, so I could glue the spine and reinforce it with cloth.

While that dried, I went digging through my fabric scraps. I tend to hold onto old shirts and clothes for printmaking practice, a way to test how my inks behave, and I remembered a pair of old jeans I thought might be perfect. I've always loved the look and feel of denim, and covering the journal in it felt like giving new life to two things at once.

Then came the genuinely hard decision: front or back for the pocket? I actually polled my friends. Many felt it belonged on the back, since that's where it had lived on the jeans, but practicality won out and it went on the front. No regrets. That little pocket makes me smile every time I see it, a permanent, happy memory stitched right into the cover.

Of course, it wouldn't be a true handmade project without a hiccup. When I went to assemble everything on Sunday, I realized I'd cut the cover too large and had to gently peel the fabric back and trim about an inch off the bottom. It made me think of all the times my mum hemmed my pants when I was a kid, though I'm fairly sure she never reached for the glue.

This time I tried something different from the journal my friend and I made together. Instead of one continuous piece of fabric, I used separate pieces for the front cover, the back, and the spine. I leaned on a wonderful book I'd checked out from the library, Making Handmade Books: 100+ Bindings, Structures & Forms by Alisa J. Golden, and otherwise just learned by trial and error. At one point the covers felt far too floppy at the spine, so I reinforced them with extra paper. In hindsight that was a touch of overkill, the cover is now almost a little too stiff, but I'm proud of it all the same.

What it gave back

There were, I'll confess, a few mini freakouts along the way. The worst was the moment the cover flopped backward before the glue had set and I was sure I'd ruined it. But it held, and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.

A friend of mine has a line I keep coming back to: you always learn something new from every project. This one had me thinking about how much a single choice can change everything. This journal would look like a completely different object if I'd reached for a favorite old t-shirt, or one of Terry's old dress shirts, instead of those well-worn jeans.

There's one more detail I love. The spine quietly connects this journal to last year's, which is covered entirely in the same floral fabric, a thrifted skirt that caught my eye at the Thrift Barn in Denville. (The Book and Thrift Barns are a favorite spot for Terry and me to wander, so I'm sure they'll turn up here again before long.)

More than anything, this was a reminder of why I make. Setting aside a weekend afternoon to mend something by hand, something that had been quietly nagging at me, was its own kind of reset. It pulled me out of spreadsheets and to-do lists and back into the slow, absorbing work I love. That's what A Moment Carved is about for me: carving out small, deliberate pauses to begin again.

It feels fitting that this comes just before I get to teach a Summer Reading Journal Workshop at my local library this week. I'm genuinely so excited to share my love of books and journaling with others. If you're hoping for your own small summer pause, it's worth checking whether your local library has anything fun on this season. Mine has been such a gift.

As for my own journal, I'm already daydreaming about next year's. I'm toying with the idea of starting with smaller booklets and binding them into a single volume at the end of the year. We'll see. For now, I'm just happy to have this one back in one piece, pocket and all.

— Tokig