Category Archives: Travellers Notebook

Van der Spek Nomad TN – Review

The other day I published a series of photos of the making of this Van der Spek Nomad TN. Well it arrived on Monday morning and it was worth waiting for that is for sure.

It arrived in quite a large box but well padded. Inside was this presentation box.

Inside the box was the VdS Nomad wrapped in a cellophane bag. Nice and simple packaging, not wasteful and you know what you are paying for when you order one of these, the money is going in to the product not the fancy box etc.

I took a moment to admire it before slipping off the elastic closure loop.

A pleasant surprise, some more spare elastic in a small cellophane bag, so I put that to one side.

This particular Nomad is the basic cover but with just the option of the pen loop, I like my travellers notebook covers to be nice and simple in design, adding the pen loop adds to the practicality of the cover. Other options are of course available.

The configuration of the elastics gives you four equal length elastics. And by spacing them out like this you will see it controls the positioning of the booklets very neatly.

Turning it over we see the simple closure loop. Note that all the holes are eyeleted, this adds to the finish and helps with restringing if required. It also helps you get equal tension on all the elastics because they can move through the holes easily.

So to start with I put in the three booklets I had been using for journalling whilst on holiday in North America recently. These are Moleskine Cahier notebooks that I have trimmed down in width using the method shown by Ray Blake in his video. I’ve used this method several times and the results are excellent.

The pen is the pen I travelled with on holiday because they claim it does not leak on aircraft, it is a Uniball Vision Elite, it fits the elasticated pen loop perfectly without stretching it, and no it doesn’t leak!

From this angle you can see how square the spine is.

The texture of the leather which by the way smells gorgeous, shows up nicely in this oblique photograph. The stitching is beautifully accurate and equal in spacing.

The thread is Cuoio in colour a nice contrast to the olive green (Janet) leather, but without being as harsh on the eye as white stitching would be.

The pen loop is slightly off set, but this allows longer pens to be stored or a mechanical pencil even without any trouble.

I discovered I had some more more Moleskine Cahiers so I made another 3 books to try out the Nomad with 6 notebooks in it!!!

 

To add books 5 and 6 I had to join them with an elastic band and tuck them behind one of the other books.

As you can see the Nomad can hold six notebooks and the pen loop doesn’t get pushed outwards, and there is no overhang.

When I showed the above photos to Petra she said, it is really designed for 4 notebooks. OK but it takes six!

So I slipped out the two joined ones and put in four un-used books for some more photos.

Look how nice and even those books sit with the spacing of the elastics.

 

Again a sideways shot, no different to when it only had three notebooks in it really.

An overhead shot for completeness…

And finally a surprise… I had to try it… How many Travellers Notebook covers do you know that will stand upright on their spine?  The VdS Nomad will… and here is the proof..

Now if you think it is a trick photo? On a plain background that I use for most photos it is difficult to tell from what angle it has been photographed from.

So back at my desk I repeated the photo, yes my desk is that untidy tonight!

There are no bits of blue tac or anything else holding it up. It sits there!

 

I think Van der Spek are on to a winner with this Travellers Notebook cover, they have used their many years of experience of making leather goods including book covers of various types, of custom ring bound organisers to come up with a simple and elegant design for a Travellers Notebook cover.

With Van der Spek you have a huge range of leather types and colours to choose from. I worked it out the other day if you took all the combinations of interior leather and exterior leather currently available (August 2015) the number of different covers you would make without any two being the same is about 2400… so you know that when you order one of these it is being made to order, just for you.. and given that number of variations it is unlikely that there will be two the same! That doesn’t include the variations you add by choosing different options either!

New leathers and colours are added at frequent intervals too! This Nomad is in one of the new ‘Janet leather’ colours ‘Olive Green’  The smell and feel is identical to other brands of Italian leather TN covers.

You can order your Van der Spek TN cover on the VDS shop, it comes with a variety of options you can add to the basic cover.

If you find the choice a little bewildering then help is at hand over on Facebook where there is an active and friendly group dedicated to Van der Spek products, join today.

Thank you to Petra Van der Spek for supplying this review sample.

Here is her video explaining the details of the VdS Nomad TN

 

Van der Spek Nomad TN

It was back in October 2014 that along with Janet Carr, I visited the Van der Spek workshop in Puttershoek, a small town south of Rotterdam. Janet Carr and I spent 3-4 days together along with Petra Van der Spek and her family.

During our visit we talked endlessly about organisers and planners of all types, makes and sorts. Before our visit we had spoken with Petra about the idea of creating a Van der Spek Travellers Notebook cover, but in a design unique to Van der Spek.

Van der Spek are renowned in the planner community for their high quality products, their excellent and friendly customer service and their ability to produce more or less anything you want in leather.

We must not forget that Van der Spek have what must be the biggest choice in types and colours of leather that I have ever seen which they can use to produce custom made to order planners in their own workshop.

So Janet and I thought that creating a Travellers Notebook cover wouldn’t be too difficult. So sat around one of the large work benches last October, we started to sketch out ideas and discuss different options and possibilities. I mistakenly thought that during our visit we would only be discussing these ideas, but Petra’s father is a fast worker and started creating simple prototypes of our design ideas.

The first and second versions were just a simple single piece of leather for us to try out some different stringing options, things progressed to version 3, but by our second day of discussions and trial and error testing version 4 was quite a fancy design with pockets and credit card slots.

We went away quite excited at the possibilities. Christmas came and went and Petra was busy with expanding the range of ring bound organisers and creating a much improved website.

We then in April organised the first ever Van der Spek meet up, which included a workshop visit with demonstrations of how things are made. The small but excited group sadly didn’t include Janet, which was a shame, but she was there in spirit I know.

After a wonderful buffet lunch Petra gathered the group around and then she produced from a box three prototype Travellers Notebook covers in three different styles and types of leather, and the designs of the covers had different options too.

When I posted photos of these covers on to the Facebook groups, things went crazy, the Van der Spek group run by Janet, Susan and myself went in to melt down, this was the first that the group had seen of these covers, Janet and I had kept quiet about the work we had done in October !!! The group grew by about 200 people in the space of 24 hours!

The Nomad gained its name a month or so later and has now appeared on the Van der Spek website for people to order.

In the past Petra has kindly photographed in detail how they make their ring bound organisers and she offered to do the same for two Nomad TN covers she was going to make for Janet and I. You can see the multicolour design that Janet went for on her own blog here.

I will try to explain to the best of my knowledge the process and the order of operations that go to making a Nomad TN cover.

For this cover I opted for just the basic cover in the natural hide saddle leather known as ‘Janet Leather‘ but in olive green (107), other colours are available. The only option I added was an elasticated pen loop, but it is also possible to add a set of pockets on the front inside cover and/or a secretarial pocket on the inside back cover as well or instead of. This set of options gives you a lot of flexibility to tailor the cover to your needs perfectly.

To see the full range of leather options and colours please see the Van der Spek website. At present only the cover with all options appears on the website, this will change soon. But you can contact Petra website@vdslederwaren.nl to request a different configuration. Prices start from €85 for just the basic cover plus VAT (if applicable) and shipping.

As this is a very picture heavy post I have added a break point after the third photo, click see more to see them all.

The leather is selected using the frame for cutting

 

The same process is also done for the inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The outside and inside are cut and ready
The outside is larger than the inside.

 

Leather for the pen loop is cut out.

 

 

 

All the component parts are now ready for stitching

 

First the pen loop is stitched, we chose a golden brown thread.

 

The inside of the pen loop has a strip of elastic attached to it.

 

Completed pen loop.

 

The inside cover is cut to accept the pen loop.

 

 

The pen loop being stitched to the inside cover.

 

 

 

 

Bontex stiffener is glued to the inside front and back cover but the spine is left clear.
Bontex is thin and very flexible and helps to keep the cover in shape.

 

 

 

The bontex is now in place.

 

Using a small amount of glue the outside is attached to the inside.

 

The edges are folded over, known as ‘booked’

 

The corners are delicately shaped and folded.

 

 

 

A gentle tap to flatten the leather.

 

 

The edges are now stitched.

 

 

Working all around the circumference of the cover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The finished cover is carefully aligned on a jig.

 

The specially made punch is then lined up.
And the holes for the elastics are punched through the layers of leather.

 

Eyelets are pushed through the holes.

 

This is the inside of the eyelets

 

A press is then used to flare the eyelets

 

 

 

 

 

This gives a neat finish, the eyelets make it easier to adjust the elastics.

 

The interior of the finished cover.

 

And the outside.

 

 

 

The configuration of the elastics gives four equal length elastics

 

 

Shown here with four regular size booklets.

The cover is being shipped to me and should be with me sometime this coming week. I will take some more photos once it has arrived.

I would like to thank Petra Van der Spek for all the photographs.

Don’t forget to visit Janet Carr, This Bug’s Life blog to see the companion cover to this one. And if you haven’t joined us on the Van der Spek Facebook group yet… click through and send a request to join and you will discover the whole world of Van der Spek organisers, Hobonichi covers, Nomad covers and anything else Van der Spek makes… it is quite a large range.

If you have any questions about the Van der Spek Nomad Travellers Notebook Cover, please leave them in the comments below.

Finally here is Petra’s video about the Noman TN cover:

What size do you use?

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Thank you.