Recently I have been researching nineteenth century political writing, especially about abolition; I feel very strongly about the modern counterparts to those issues and it's important to me to reflect that in my historical reenacting (because history isn't an escape from the present, it's context in which the present exists). I found the very excellent book "An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans called Africans" from 1833 on Project Gutenberg, and I wanted to be able to have it on hand while reenacting. But it would be annoying and silly to print the whole think off the internet, so I bought a cheap used paperback of it off Amazon (because of course some college or other used it in a class) and I rebound it!
I looked at probably 25 bookbinding tutorials of all sorts before I began - I found this one especially useful. I just read enough to get a good idea of the general steps and terminology, so that I could reapply the concepts to my project.

The book came with the original 1830s text and a modern section of introductions and appendices, so I split the text block along those lines. I bound the modern section first, so if I made mistakes I could fix them. I had a bit of trouble getting the text block glued into the cover straight; it ended up being a little cockeyed, but the actual book text wound up a bit straighter!

For the main text, I attached end-papers of brown construction paper, and a "super" out of plain thin cotton to be sure everything would stay together.

Then I put together the cover - two cardboard boards for the front and back covers, and another thin bit for the spine. That was all covered with a large sheet of white drawing paper. I stuck another "super" onto the spine section of the cover just to be safe that it would all hold together. Then I folded the paper around the cover, and glued everything carefully down into the grooves between the spine and cover boards.

And that is where I stopped taking pictures, of course.

I added fabric parts along the spine and on each corner for reinforcement (and of course because it looks cool). Then I glued the text block into the cover - I only glued the covers, not the spine, so it would be able to open more easily. And it wound up mostly straight! The covers of the book text and the modern section match, so they look like a set. I need to add some kind of label to the covers still. But the book has been really handy and very functional, and I'm quite pleased with it!

I have SO MUCH fabric

The shelves are just stuffed right full! My parents are always asking, "do you really need more fabric?" to which, as every stitcher knows, the answer is always "yeah, duh."
The frustrating thing is, I'm not even just collecting random fabric with no purpose. I mean, I am a little, but at this point I've stared at this fabric stash for so long that tons of this stuff has a plan, at least sort of - I just need the time to get these things made. And it feels like there's never time, or if there it I'm doing mending or something.
But let me take you on a tour of some of these plans. (Masses of pictures ahead!

And as I was putting this list together I kept glancing over and seeing other things that I have plans or tentative plans for. Giant pile of blue poly velvet? Elizabethan gown! Salmon colored cotton flannel? Overdye it red and make a 19th c petticoat! A million potential blouses out of quilting cottons! And that isn't including the leather-for-shoes and the upholstery-scraps-for-purses, and the scraps-for-quilting, which are in the boxes above and below the main fabric stash.
Oh yeah, and the Yarn Bench
And the 1000 mending and UFO projects lying in piles all over everywhere.

If only I had a sudden inheritance, and I could quit work and just do ALL THE PROJECTS. and then I could finally buy some new fabric, ha.

... a sweater!

The color is a little more saturated in real life, a nice pale teal. I just love it!! I'm knitting from the bottom up. It isn't from a pattern, I'm just making it up as I go. Its a sort of wide rib, k4 p1, 140 stitches around, size 8-ish needles. It's got these little vents on the sides.

It'll be mid-hip length. When I get to the top it'll have just ribbed arm openings, no sleeves. I think probably also just a ribbed crew neck, unless I suddenly decide I reeeeeally want a cowl. Cowls are just harder to combine, like I couldn't wear one with a collared shirt, so that's pretty unlikely, I think.

I like to have a lot of coats in winter, so that my coat can contribute to my outfit rather than hiding it. Two years ago (or so) I made myself this black coat out of an old coat I already had:

The old coat was a classic long black men's dress coat - I'm not sure how to describe the style, but you'd know if you saw it. The wool is lovely and thick and good quality (I got the coat second-hand; I forget if I bought it or if it was a Free Thing.). However the neckline made an inconveniently deep V for someone of my stature - I can only assume the coat's intended wearer was over 6 feet. And of course the skirt of the coat was straight up and down, so as my taste in skirts expanded sideways the coat couldn't keep up. So I made it over into this shorter coat, which is in the style of an 1860s coat with full sleeves and wide mid-thigh length skirts. It was recognized as probably 1860s by a stranger in a restaurant once so I guess it's not half bad.

Now because I was making one shaped garment out of another, there was a need for quite a bit of piecing, especially in the sleeves. In order to perserve as much width as possible, I pieced by zigzagging the abbutted edges of the fabric together, with a bit of hem tape behind to support it. But, while this wool is thick, it is not felt, so there are a number of places along the piecing lines that are trying to come apart.

I do not much like this state of affairs! Having worn the coat for some years now, I am quite sure there's enough space in there to make proper seams instead of weird zigzag nonsense. Unfortunately, that means I need to take the coat pretty much all to pieces and put it back together again...