Cèilidh Nam Freumhan

Tag: notebooks

  • Practice is Passable

    Practice is Passable

    Normally, I don’t post something the day I actually do it. But today, I was especially frustrated because I don’t feel like I’m making progress.

    I bought some chipboard so I could try working with a more professional material. I’m still using printer paper for now, as I want to get this down before I start using my nice paper.

    I made six signatures with five sheets of paper each. I wanted to make sure the stitching was visible, so I got out the waxed thread that came with my upholstery repair kit and threaded a bookbinding needle.

    The waxed thread is very difficult to manage. I couldn’t keep tension, and I think it’s just too thick for bookbinding. I got to the third signature and realized I wouldn’t have enough thread for the other three, so I decided to just sew on the cover and call it good.

    And of course…I was about 1/2″ short.

    Then I got out some embroidery floss, which is too thick for the bookbinding needles. I was able to thread a curved needle, which seems like a great option for this type of binding. However, I haven’t worked with a curved needle before, and I kept dropping it.

    I made sure I had plenty of thread this time. So obviously, it got tangled, and I had to start over for the fifth time. (I left out some retries because they’re really not important in the grand scheme of things.)

    I finally got four signatures plus the cover secured. Yet even though I blamed the waxed thread for the tension issues, it was me all along.

    Thus, the cover lies flat, but only because the stitching is so loose.

    I started this blog because I wanted to share the learning process, which includes days of frustration and failure. Though I suppose nothing is truly a failure if you manage to learn something along the way.

    Maybe I’ll do a Tunisian crochet thing next…even though I know I have tension issues there, too!

    Practice makes passable for now.

  • How Does Baseball Fit Into All This?

    I am obsessed with baseball. With one team in particular, but that’s not important right now.

    One of my commonplace books is solely about baseball — some stats about my favorite players, pictures of their various World Series wins, and the best part: mapping out different pitch types, from what they look like from the batter’s box to what they look like from the side.

    I grew up watching my dad play baseball, and honestly, I sure was sick of it for a while. Then, a couple of years ago, I happened to turn on the Friday night Apple TV game. Immediately, the noise of the crowd and the game itself calmed my nerves.

    I had forgotten how soothing it was.

    So I dove back in full throttle.

    I love studying stats and trying to figure out what might happen based on current numbers. One of the things I like about the Apple TV broadcast is that they show cool stats like “probability of reaching base” and things like that.

    Though if I were the batter, it probably wouldn’t feel great to see “probability of a strikeout: 60%.” Hah!

    I dedicated an entire section of my 2026 planner to my team. I wrote out the schedule, where I keep track of wins and losses. I have a roster that I update when players are injured, sent down to AAA, called back up, etc.

    I even made a reading tracker that looks like a scorekeeper’s book: single = 1 star, double = 2 stars, and you can figure it out from there. I write a “K” — which signifies a strikeout — if I hated the book but finished it anyway.

    I am sorry to say I have few home runs this year, but several strikeouts.

    But that’s the game.

    And apparently, there is no crying in baseball!

    As you can see, I was entirely too heavy-handed with the mildliners…
  • Another Attempt at Japanese Stab Binding

    Another Attempt at Japanese Stab Binding

    I try to use what I have on hand, but for the life of me, I couldn’t get a good template because everything I had was either too flimsy or too much.

    I have some waxed thread, but it’s meant for upholstery repair and gave me a lot of problems between the wax and the thickness.

    I also have a ton of embroidery thread, but it’s too thin to work with on its own, and I kept shredding the covers.

    I had purchased cardstock, but I didn’t get the right finish, so it looked like I had made a construction paper notebook for my third-grade dinosaur project.

    I want to make A5 notebooks, as well as traveler’s notebook-style notebooks, but A5 paper, being slightly different from letter size, somehow costs far more than letter paper.

    So…I found some letter-sized chipboard and decided to try again with printer paper and some embroidery floss that arrived today.

    Here is the setup once I got all the paper cut and the holes poked through:

    The next problem was that my bookbinding needles don’t have eyes large enough for embroidery floss. That seems like something a bookbinding needle should be able to handle, but what do I know?

    I finally found a needle that would work—from my upholstery repair kit—and of course it broke after going through the first hole.

    I found another upholstery needle that did work, finally.

    This attempt went much better than the last, especially because I bought a paper guillotine and wasn’t cutting every page by hand. Clearly, I like to punish myself by cutting single sheets of paper one at a time…

    I’m pleased with my second attempt, knowing I still have a long way to go.

    I also need to remember to hinge the front cover before I sew everything together. Preferably with the Teflon bone folder.

    Hence the awful crinkles on the finished product.

    I present:

  • When Motivation is Low…

    When Motivation is Low…

    My last post discussed hitting a creative block, which in turn has caused a bit of an internal struggle. I want to keep creating, but I also don’t want to force myself—nothing kills my passion faster than feeling trapped.

    Today, I told myself I had to do something. I decided to bind another pamphlet, since it really doesn’t take a lot of time or effort (at least, minimal effort for my current skill level).

    I had a file folder lying around that I thought would make a nicer cover than the card stock I had been using. I also wanted to try out my Teflon bone folder.

    The folder was a little larger than the paper when folded in half, so that removed the “trim the paper” equation entirely. However, I have not mastered scoring yet, so when I folded the file folder, it still ended up with some weird creases.

    I also wanted to try the other thread that came with my upholstery repair kit. That thread is more like regular sewing thread, so I had to tread carefully. I had been using the thicker waxed thread, but it didn’t tighten well and ended up looking really messy.

    I made the holes in the paper, and they were a bit off-center, as usual. I plan to make a book-piercing stand at some point, but since I am still practicing the binding itself, that can wait a bit.

    The sewing went faster this time since it wasn’t my first try, and I am happy with the overall look.

    I love that the thread is unobtrusive.
    From the outside, the file folder made a much nicer cover than I expected.
  • My Interests are Taking Over My Desk

    My Interests are Taking Over My Desk

    I believe I have mentioned before that I find a topic, obsess over it for a while, then totally forget about it.

    Right now, it is Baldur’s Gate 3.

    I bought the game right after it came out, along with a Steam Deck, played for about three weeks, and then my Steam Deck sat untouched until about a year ago. So obviously, now that I am obsessed with Baldur’s Gate 3 again, I started playing it on my PC instead. The Steam Deck is busy with my other game.

    I have been reading the D&D Player’s Handbook for the past week so I can get a better idea of how to set up my character in BG3. I also bought Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide because there is some lore I am lacking.

    Have my notes evolved into yet another commonplace book? You bet they have.

    In a week or two, I will probably be able to rattle off any number of feats, backgrounds, classes, and spells. In two months, I will be focused on something else entirely. It’s just how it is with me.

    This is, of course, happening right after I bought a new desk with about twice as much real estate as the old one. My monitor is pretty big, so before, there wasn’t room for much besides a keyboard and mouse.

    Naturally, I am already covering the new desk.

    I started more Jewish studies, so that notebook is sitting on top of the related binder and my current book. Then there is my garden compendium. I 3D printed two desk organizers. Of course I also had to make room for my cat Post-It dispenser.

    And more pens. Always more pens.

    I also have a hankering to make some notebooks, but I am waiting on a Teflon bone folder, which should arrive tomorrow. Given the current state of my desk, what I clearly need is more notebooks.

    In the meantime, my paladin has work to do.

    Photo by Stephen Hardy on Pexels.com

  • Why Did I Start Making Study Guides?

    When I was working on my master’s degree, I also had to learn how to use Chicago/Turabian citations. Before that, I’d had classes that required MLA and APA, but Chicago/Turabian turned out to be a whole different beast. No matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to lose a point or two because I’d gotten something wrong.

    When it came time to write my thesis, I decided I wasn’t dealing with that anymore. Every time I accessed a source, I wrote down everything about it: title, author(s), publication date, publisher, and anything else I might need. Then I wrote down the correct format for the first footnote, subsequent footnotes, and the bibliography.

    That meant that when I was actually writing, I could just write. I didn’t have to stop every few minutes to figure out how I was supposed to cite something and potentially lose my train of thought. And when the paper itself was finished, dealing with the citations was a whole lot easier.

    A few months ago, I found myself thinking, “I wish I’d had something like this way back when…” And then the lightbulb went off. Why not make it? If it made my life easier, maybe I could save someone else from suffering through the same thing.

    As it turns out, making the templates took more time than learning Chicago/Turabian in the first place.

    I had to jump straight into the deep end with Scribus, the open-source design tool I’d found. I have to admit, I said some fairly offensive words to Scribus during the process, but luckily it’s not a person I’d have to apologize to later.

    I can’t say that I’ve beaten Scribus, mastered it, or even reached anything resembling ease of use, but I at least remembered to save my completed pages as templates so I don’t continue to tear out my hair.

    Photo by Eli Sommer on Pexels.com
  • I Like Knowing Things

    I Like Knowing Things

    One of the things I’ve realized this year is that I don’t really collect hobbies.

    From the outside, it probably looks like I bounce from one thing to another. Gardening. Bookbinding. Norwegian. Citation templates. Herbs. Cocktails. Ancient history.

    They’re all over the place.

    To me, though, they’re all the same hobby.

    I like understanding how things work.

    The garden has made that clearer than anything else. Before this year, companion planting was something I’d read about. Soil composition was something I’d heard people discuss. Medicinal herbs were mostly names in books.

    Now I get to watch it happen.

    I’m seeing why one bed dries out faster than another. Why some plants seem happier next to certain neighbors. Which herbs attract pollinators and which ones don’t. Which vegetables struggle through a heat wave while others barely notice. It’s no longer just biology in a textbook. It’s biology happening in my backyard.

    That’s probably why my garden is organized the way it is. It isn’t the most efficient layout, and I’ve certainly spent more time weeding because of it. But separating plants by water needs, companion planting, shade, and other variables lets me see what works and what doesn’t. I’m treating the garden as one giant experiment.

    The same thing happens with my other projects.

    I didn’t start making notebooks because I thought notebooks were too expensive. I started because I wanted to understand how books are made. Every mistake teaches me something, and every notebook gets a little better than the last.

    I originally started learning Norwegian because I had a reason to. Somewhere along the way, though, the language became the reward. I enjoy the grammar, I enjoy listening to it, and I was ridiculously proud of myself for using it in Oslo, even if it was only a little.

    The citation bundles might be the clearest example of all. I don’t enjoy formatting bibliographies. I enjoy solving problems, and I kept thinking about how much easier graduate school would have been if I’d had something like this on my desk.

    Maybe that’s why all of these projects seem connected to me, even if they don’t to anyone else.

    I’m not really collecting hobbies.

    I’m collecting understanding.

    woman surrounded by books and studying on her bed
    Photo by MART PRODUCTION on Pexels.com
  • How Many Notebooks is too Many?

    How Many Notebooks is too Many?

    I first learned about commonplace books while reading the second book of A Discovery of Witches. It sounded like such a cool idea.

    I immediately found an unused notebook in my inventory and started carrying it around.

    I had been told that one simply writes down anything interesting. Unfortunately, I wasn’t finding anything interesting at first, and every time I wrote something down, it felt forced.

    A few months ago—maybe a year, time has ceased to have meaning—I started a bullet journal again. Instead of writing down things I needed to do or making trackers, it slowly turned into a commonplace book.

    I started devoting entire sections to things I was interested in: four pages on whisky, seven pages on Gàidhlig grammar, and assorted bits of trivia that appealed to me for reasons known only to my brain.

    Eventually, I had to start making separate notebooks. I simply had too many interests to fit into one.

    As far as I can remember, I currently have notebooks for:

    • Baseball
    • Gàidhlig
    • Norwegian
    • One for a game I am playing but refuse to admit to publicly
    • Religious studies
    • Gardening adventures (which covers enough topics to qualify as several notebooks by itself)

    And I still have many blank notebooks waiting to be filled.

    So how many notebooks is too many?

    Like the question of how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know.

    Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com
  • Middle Age is Realizing You Can Just Learn Weird Things

    Middle Age is Realizing You Can Just Learn Weird Things

    I think a lot of us are taught that life follows a fairly straightforward path: go to college right after high school, find a career, and work forty or more hours a week until retirement. I never really followed that plan, and for a long time I felt like I had somehow done life incorrectly.

    As I have gotten older, though, I have realized that the things I didn’t do made me different in a way that I actually appreciate. I have always been curious, and I finally feel like I have given myself permission to simply learn things because they interest me.

    So these days I find myself learning crafts, bookbinding, languages, gardening, and even some homesteading skills. There is always some new rabbit hole waiting to be explored.

    Not always having steady work has certainly been stressful, but it has also taught me that life is about more than giving decades of yourself to an employer who may never appreciate you the way you deserve. There is value in creating things, learning things, and following your curiosity.

    At this point, if something sounds interesting, I want to try it. Some people may think that is strange, and perhaps it is. But I enjoy it, and I like the idea of keeping my mind active and open to new experiences.

    Maybe I am making up for lost time. Or maybe I am finally becoming the person I was always meant to be.

    Either way, I think Hannah Montana had it right:

    “Life’s what you make it.”

    Photo by Paweu0142 L. on Pexels.com
  • The Case for Overcomplicating Things

    The Case for Overcomplicating Things

    I have a tendency to overcomplicate things. At least, that is probably how it appears from the outside. But for me, I usually have to do things the “hard way” if I want them to work at all.

    For example, I grouped my garden into separate beds based on companion planting, water needs, shade requirements, and a variety of other factors. That left a lot of space in between them that still isn’t completely weeded and is taking a massive amount of time.

    But all of that was necessary if I wanted to see what works and what doesn’t. I already know that I can’t plant anything close to the quince-from-hell, and that apparently I can kill peppermint where I intentionally planted it, but not the peppermint that insists on growing literally everywhere else in the garden.

    I have notebooks for language learning. I keep lists of cocktail ideas. I have spent an unreasonable amount of time designing printables. I make tables, draw diagrams, and write down things that many people would simply trust themselves to remember.

    I don’t think the complexity is the problem. I think it is how I learn.

    I need to do things in a way that helps me not only learn, but remember what I learned and how I learned it.

    Paying attention applies to just about everything I do instead of blindly hoping for success.

    I have always felt the need to break things down and figure out how they work. I have never been able to simply memorize phrases and words in other languages because I need to know why something is spelled one way with one pronoun and differently when the pronoun changes.

    I enjoy creating systems. I love finding patterns. That might mean I have more notebooks than most people find necessary.

    Some days I will spend hours writing down Norwegian grammar rules and lists of reflexive verbs. Other days I will spend hours drawing diagrams of different baseball pitches.

    What looks complicated to others simply feels interesting to me.

    The goal was never perfection.

    It was understanding.

    And if understanding occasionally requires a little overcomplication, I think that’s a trade-off worth making.

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