Re-lace your Meadowgate Leather journal cover
If your elastics have become worn, discoloured or saggy:
You will need a length of round elastic, sometimes referred to as hat elastic or bungee cord. I find that elastic about 2mm diameter is best. Any smaller and it cannot support the notebook - especially the larger sizes.
I offer well over a dozen colours of elastics in my Etsy shop. You can click here if you would like to go directly to my elastics item. I will send you approx 1.5 metres of 2mm (nominal) elastic which should be ample to re-lace your journal cover.
How to re-lace your Meadowgate Leather Journal Cover: This is for standard 4-string / 3 holes covers.
Remove the old suspension elastics.
Place your cover upright on a table, with the lower back cover uppermost to your right (this will usually have the logo stamp on it)
From the outside of the journal, insert one end of the elastic into the hole which is upper right hand as you look at it. Pull enough through to reach the middle of the journal.
Now push the other end through the middle hole and pull it through, so that most of the elastic is now inside the journal.
You can now thread the long end through the opposite middle hole and out the back.
From here, take the long end and push it back through the next hole (which is diagonally opposite the hole we started at).
You can probably see how it's going from here. :-)
Push the end through the cover's bottom left hole and then back through the bottom middle hole. This is where it can get difficult, as there is already an elastic there! You may need a fid to help you. If you don't have one laying around the house, something pointed and blunt should do it. With one hand, pull the resident elastic to one side and try to expand the hole enough to fit the new elastic through.
You will need to do the same with the next hole, but after that, the final hole should be a doddle.
Now you just need to push and pull here and there to equal the tensions of all the strings, then you can tie the two ends of elastic together.
Trim off the excess, but i'd recommend leaving a little incase you need to re-do the knot.
I always finish off by applying a flame to the elastic ends to stop them fraying - not too much, just enough to melt the end. Take care if you try this.