Moleskine Cover

Thanks for posting the design, it’s great!

One thing I’d probably change on it is to add a second pen loop and stitch it into the front cover… that way you could slip the pen into both as a cover interlock.

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Great suggestion!

Great design–thank you. I may have to make use of this at some point–though I machine stitch my leather projects (pros/cons to that).

But bit confused, since haven’t used the term used for a book cover before… but rather as a type of fabric (usually heavily brush cotton twill), or of course hides of moles, but did google it. Aha! Moleskine is a trademarked brand for journal & book covers, so just be careful to not copy their work.

But bit confused, since haven’t used the term used for a book cover before… but rather as a type of fabric (usually heavily brush cotton twill), or of course hides of moles, but did google it. Aha! Moleskine is a trademarked brand for journal & book covers, so just be careful to not copy their work.

This is a cover for the trademarked brand of journal called Moleskine. Yes. No copying is made here, it’s a leather cover for that brand of notebook.

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Thanks for clarifying!

Oh wow! I just spent the last few days making similar-but-not-quite-the-same moleskine covers! I wish I’d seen this earlier. Here are mine, if anyone wants a variant:

Basic cover:

Cover with pen loop and snap clasp:


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Love it! It looks great! I dig the clasp idea.

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This is great!

I’m pretty sure I love you both. I’ve been thinking about doing this and here you are, with gorgeous designs offered up as perfect guidance! I am a rank novice- may I ask what weight leather you used? I’ve been looking at some gorgeous blue veg tanned leather, but I have NO CLUE as to what weight to get.

Thanks again for sharing this!

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I’m a novice, too! This is the second journal I’ve made. I picked up some 2-3 oz veg tanned leather at Tandy. I highly recommend going in there if you get a chance, they can help you figure out everything you need to get, and the person helping me didn’t oversell at all.

I wrote up a quick blog post on the steps to make the journal, I hope it helps!

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I’m totally a novice as well, I went to the leather store here in Portland (Oregon Leather) and bought a half-a-hide of veg tanned cow leather. I don’t recall what weight they said it was, but I’d say it’s probably medium-to-thick. I’ll ask them next time I’m there (this weekend probably).

My wife has since made 2 more of these, one of which she dyed a nice deep blue. Looks really great.

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No such luck at my Tandy this morning, but the gentlemen who helped me made sure I got the right materials to dye it myself, which, after a few YouTube Viewings, I should be able to handle. Can I just say I’m petrified right now, but I got a large enough piece to allow for multiple screw-ups.

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Excellent design and execution. Well done. The force is strong in this one…

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Visited the leather store yesterday. We used 6-7 oz leather.

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Here’s some photos of a moleskine cover my wife made with my pattern.

Leather is 6-7 oz. cut and engraved on the GF. Then dyed red with Fiebing leather dye. The white parts are acrylic paint. Then oiled and stitched together using white thread.

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I needed a quick present for a niece and, kind of wanted to try saddle stitching after seeing everyone here talking about it. I was able to adapt @jiva 's design to fit an inexpensive sketchbook of the same general size.

This is a “throw some art on it” rough draft but, I like how it came out enough that I am likely to do more.

I used the Saddle synthetic leather from Johnson. Engrave and cut was quick and easy once I got the settings sorted.

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Nice work! How did you do the design on the leather? Is it painted or engraved?

That’s just engraved. The black Saddle stuff engraves to a metallic silver (like the way two-color acrylic works). They also have a couple shades of brown that engrave to contrasting shades. Makes things quick and easy.

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I may have to look into that material. I LOVE the silver on Black look

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Oooh, goody! I just ordered some of that. Had I known it worked that nicely, I would have padded my order a bit more – I thought about it, to make up for the flat rate shipping, but didn’t want to end up with a bunch of stuff I couldn’t use, if it turned out not to be so great. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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