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Friday 13 June 2014

Meet Coccodrillo


Hello all, I´ve been on a hiatus for a while. Lots of things needed to be done and everything in terms of distraction had to be eliminated. 
So once I promised Paul B at Philofaxy to show pictures, I figured it was about time to dust this place, just as well.

The binder below is a former bag. It was a lovely vintage gem that I bought from Amsterdam. Once the bag practically disheveled (I used it a lot), I carefully removed the leather, it comes from from real crocodile and if you know this type of leather, it is very stiff, hard and armor- like. Very contrary to snake and completely opposite to calfskin. I was surprised to see how thin the leather was and how the pattern completely mirrors to the suede-side of the leather. 



So I wanted a personal sized binder but with larger rings. I wanted to add portability to the ability to hold a lot of information and writing space. The next time I went to grocery store I bought a general binder with pliable, thin´ish plastic covers and cut the spine off with rings still attached. I sewed the covers and lining, glued the spine to the leather cover, then glued the leather facing on it, stitched the top seam and then sewed the inside cover including pockets etc and finally stitched the two covers together. 



These pictures, that have not been taken on direct daylight, seem to have both too much flash and then not at all. My apologies.


At the back there is a pocket (all pockets are lined with leather) that holds my mark-it dots.  I placed a sheet of grid paper to protect personal information., There are some loyalty cards and library cards etc. at the back.


The rings measure 3,1 cm´s from inside and 3,5 cm´s when measured from the outside of the rings. I have cut the papers to 9 cm width and they do come all the way to the edge of binder edges, when being closed. To closing I cut a string of leather that I whip around the brass button. I contemplated having no closure at all- I hatehatehate the poky clasp that almost every leather binder usually has. It always bends and bothers and pokes underneath your hand while writing and no matter with how much sheer, animal rage you pound the puckerer on the desk, it boinks back with unnatural fervor every. single. time. Instead of a clasp I opted for a very low profiled brass button and a string of leather.
When the leather string decides that it has had it, I will just toss it and slit a neat opening through which I´ll thread a thin, round rubber ring, anchor it there and use the band to encircle the brass button.
The tabs are made of craft paper, papers are mostly grid and creme papers, I usually carry a ballpoint pen on paper clasp at the side of pages and the pen is even further supported by this string of leather that goes across.


The smoother leather is from old leather trench. I used it to line the front covers as well, as this enabled me to have a large pocket on the whole length of the binder. You see from the picture how the lining leather follows with the grain of coccodrillo. 



No matter how beastly is the nature of this leather, I still have found that it has softened after it´s been used. I have conditioned it alongside with my other leather goods and it has been subjected to hand lotions as well. Somebody asked me how do I dare to use it, she said it looks so expensive. Yet I bought it from a thrift shop as a bag and even as a bag, I still used the old fragile thing like there´s no tomorrow. Once it could no longer be used as a bag, I made a binder out of it. And it is quite likely that this slab of leather will very well outlive me so see if I care if it´s too precious or not by the looks of it. But I´m not pretending to be a shrinking violet and I´ll gladly admit that the thing  does not clash with décor.

The binder measures approximately 5´ísh cm´s in thickness and it´s not even stuffed.