Cover Story

Side blog for bookbinding and fanbinding adventures Find me on main at kangofu-cb! (Avatar/logo by the always-amazing Maeve)

[cover-story-bindery]

CORSET SPINE!

There's probably a tutorial for this out there somewhere, I wouldn't know as I didn't look. I just decided to Fuck Around and Find Out, and I think the end result came out really beautifully!

I've done the fucking around so you don't have to! Here are the steps so that you, too, can make a book that says “unadulterated filth, but like, classy” [alternatively: “The opposite of whatever 50 shades had going on over there”]

(I don't believe in math, so no precise measurements here, I eyeballed it.)

Have hubris and spare bookcloth

Buy a grommet tool and grommets or dig yours out from wherever you left it ten years ago (watch a YouTube video or something on how to use it if you don't know how)

Decide on how big you'd like the edges of your corset to be, and then cut fabric to at least a half inch wider than that, with about a half inch overhang at both ends to fold over the top and bottom of the book cover. Mine was about 2.5 inches by 11 inches.

Remember that you are making a corset spine on two sides of the book and do the same thing a second time.

Cut two pieces of bristol board (or other thin but stiff paper-like material. It needs to be stiff enough to be able to fold the bookcloth around the edges) to the length of the cover you're attaching them to and about half-ish the size you want the finished corset to be on each cover. Mine was 1 inch by 9 inches.

In order to give my cloth a clean edge that wouldn't fray, I essentially "hemmed" it using glue. I used my hinge spacers to mark the cloth at 5mm on either edge, then glued the bristol board down at the edge of the mark on one side. Let dry for ten minutes or so so the paper doesn't slide

Put a thin layer of glue along both marked edges, then fold it over to the back side of the book cloth. It will overlap your bristol board on one side.

Dry both corset sides under a flat object with light weight for at least an hour or until you remember to come back to them. They need to be dry and flat or your corset will look weird ask me how I know

Mark the side of the corset that does not have bristol board with evenly-spaced marks for where you want your grommets to go. You only need grommets for the length of the bristol board, there will be extra cloth at the ends. Try to keep them even from the edge as well as each other, because it will be obvious if you don't ask me how I know

Place grommets. Follow your tool's instruction. Mine punches holes in the fabric, then you insert a grommet and backer, then press them with the other part of the tool. YMMV

At this point you're going to need to be working with a completed book case (I do bradel binding). I think you could do this on a completely cased-in book but I didn't try it. It's important to note that these corset strips are not structurally important. I think you could make the case and make them structurally important, but I just put them on top of the bookcloth on a completed case

Dry-fit the corset pieces to see where you want them on your case to give you whatever your desired amount of corset is. I aligned the edges of my pieces with the edge of the cover boards at the hinge. When you're satisfied with the placement, it's time to glue!

Apply a thin layer of glue to the bristol board and the folded over hem/edge on top of it. Do NOT glue it all the way to the grommets - you're going to need some room to work with the ribbon or whatever your lacing material is ask me how I know

Glue it to the cover and burnish it with your bone folder for good adhesion. Do the other side. (Make sure that your grommets are even with each other across the spine.

(at this point I put the case under weight and let it dry for a little while for the glue to set but if you feel frisky you could do the next step and THEN put it under weight)

Apply glue to the entire piece of fabric overhanging the top and bottom, fold it over the edge of the case, and glue it down.

Now would be a GREAT time to trim the corset sides to match the edge of bookcloth fabric inside your case, so it doesn't look weird underneath endpaper ask me how I know

I used binder clips to hold everything in place to dry.

Case in as usual

Lace it up like shoelaces!

[cover-story-bindery]

Had a bit of an oops with this project and then someone (cough DrG cough) reminded me I never posted the finished product here!

This binding is for “Got A Heart In Me, I Swear” by the always-fantastic @thepartyresponsible

Don’t let the baseball put you off, you don’t need to know anything about sports to read this story! It’s a beautiful love story about a completely oblivious Clint falling in love with the catcher from his new recently-traded-due-to-being-gay team, where everyone loves and appreciates him exactly how he deserves!

(Also it’s free to read on Ao3, so you definitely should go enjoy it!)

Bound in cadet blue book cloth with patterned blue endpapers, both from Hollander’s. Title page artwork was free stock imaging that I tweaked to be more blue, title font is the actual Dodger’s official font, and the rainbow baseballs scattered throughout the story were purchased on Etsy.

First up: my oopsie

I accidentally put the cover on backwards 🫣

Finished book turned out beautifully though!

[moveslikekeithrichards]

this might be kind of a reach but is there a way for printers to connect to devices so that documents can be printed from them

[sammialex]

Book 88 ✅ duo bookcloth in mudbath from @cover-story-bindery ‘s stash and leftover peony Indian print paper from Hollanders from a rebind I did last year. This has reinforced my inability to throw anything out ever.

[sleepyfoxbindery]

The Long Way Home by itsnatalie

The author (@the-stars-will-do-the-telling) received their copy so I can post! A fanbind of The Long Way Home by itsnatalie, using the typeset by @sammialex (Fingerpaint the Dawn Bindery).

I asked my friend @jerslix for their favorite fic to bind and they chose this one, so of course I had to read it before I bound it and it is a lovely, haunting, forge-a-friendship-in-adversity Tim Drake & Jason Todd fic. It is centered around a labyrinth, which became a big element of the design as you can tell. I was especially proud of how I fit the little Red Hood and Red Robin symbols into the Os on the spine. :-) The pullquote on the back winds a path through the labyrinth.

Black bookcloth from Amazon I think, metallic foils, endpapers from Sustain and Heal on etsy I believe, and bookmark charms from Michael's.

[azriona]

Fanbind: Killing Clint Barton

Just a quick little bind of my fic Killing Clint Barton. It’s probably one of the thickest I’ve bound—any thicker than this and I’m going to have to use tapes on the spine. (Which I haven’t done yet but that time is definitely coming, especially since I just found a sewing frame at the thrift store. No, they didn’t have any other binding equipment; yes, I asked! Apparently the nipping press was gone before it was even unpacked! 😂)

Anyway! Legal quarto, the last of my binds to be printed on my inkjet (all future binds will be printed on the laserjet). Do not look at the trimming. Just don’t. It’s awful. I’m aware. Shhhh. But the head- and endbands look pretty good, and I’m really pleased with the purple bookcloth. (It’s Clint Barton! Of course I’m using purple!) I'm a little annoyed at how the endpapers pasted to the boards--you can very much see where the bookcloth ends and apart from having a thicker endpaper, I'm not entirely sure there was anything I could do about that. Oh well.

I used a Cricut and HTV for the cover; it was absolute hell to weed and took a solid 45 minutes to do. Apart from the size of the title (which I wish was larger) I’m pleased with how it turned out.

[cover-story-bindery]

So this bind is one I’m super proud of! It’s a re-bind, actually, but it definitely tested my skills and patience.

Let’s start with a before photo:

So this book is fully 65+ years old. My dad asked me to rebind it for him because it is his favorite childhood book (yes he is something of a hoarder 😂) and it had reached the tenuous point of “I cannot open this because some pages may fall out and deteriorate forever”.

I completely failed to realize I was totally unqualified to do this project until I was ohhhhhh maybe halfway through it. Truly it should have been restored rather than rebound, but I’d already removed the casing and started sanding off 70 year old spine glue before I figured that out.

The original endpapers weren’t really salvageable in their entirety, though I did manage to save almost half of each side and tipped them on at the very end of the book before adding new endpapers. I ended up purchasing a map of make believe lands on Etsy as a printable and printed and trimmed the image to create brand new endpages which I think fit the vibe beautifully. I saved as many of the original illustrations in the book as well, and carefully re-glued sections that were coming apart. (The original binding was glued, not sewn, so this was a fairly involved prospect). Then I burned two leather spines trying to place HTV on them before remaking the case for the THIRD TIME using a navy lokta paper for the spine and Italian rainwater grey book cloth for the covers. It is technically a three piece bradel cover.

I gifted it to my dad for Christmas, and completely forgot to take any photos, but I saw him this weekend and asked if I could take a few and he happily informed me he’s been reading it lately 🥹

[thememedaddy]

[sleepyfoxbindery]

The Martian and Project Hail Mary Rebinds

My printer is on the fritz and I was woe-is-me-ing for a while about not being able to bind fics, when I suddenly realized that I don't need a printer to do a fancy rebind! I already owned The Martian, and had been wanting to read Project Hail Mary, so I got that in paperback also and -- voila! -- a matching set of fancy rebinds! More details under the pics.

Both fabrics are Duo, but only one is the two-tone and I wish I could capture how it shifts from pure green to blue-green to pure purple and every combination in between. The second pic is my best attempt at catching a purple angle. Vinyl is Siser Easy Weed in gold, which is a matte gold, and papers are from Sustain and Heal on Etsy (the green with gold) or probably Hollander's for the blue/yellow one. The font is Audiowide, downloadable for free. Bookmark crimps and charms are from Amazon. Feel free to ask me for more deets if needed!

[cover-story-bindery]

So @marveltrumpshate offers the option for folks to give their runner up bidder the opportunity to donate their bidding offer to charity and still receive the item they bid on, so this year I was able to make even more books for charitable causes because @spotthekrey was incredibly generous!

He requested two copies of ‘A Muscle The Size of Your Fist’ by @there-must-be-a-lock and then gave me almost complete artistic freedom on the design! I incorporated the discography images that @there-must-be-a-lock used for each chapter, along with artwork by @wyxan and @noxnthea (with their permission of course!). The book itself is a three piece bradel with black leather spine, the Bookcloth is purple Verona, and the endpages are a purple and gold Indian print that reminded me of vinyl records. The titles are permanent vinyl that has a subtle texture which also reminded me of vinyl records, and of course I chose a punk-themed font to go with the book vibes.

‘A Muscle The Size of Your Fist’ (and its sequels which were also included in the bind) is free to read on AO3!

[cover-story-bindery]

I finally get to post about these!

For @marveltrumpshate I received a pod bid for the sequels to @thepartyresponsible’s fic Do Every Stupid Thing

Obviously I decided to overachieve this situation.

Because I wanted things to be matchy matchy and for my bidders to be able to read the entire story whenever they wanted, I also bound the original fic using @runawaymarbles typeset, and then I modeled the sequel bind to complement the original!

(Their original typeset post can be found here)

Folks I made EIGHT books.

Each set matches, though I used a combination of bookcloths and endpapers. Some sets are done in Verona gunpowder from Hollanders with an indian foil print in red and gold, and some sets are duo briquette with an Indian plume print paper in red gold and silver. I also experimented with different borders for the cover material, but I did my best to mock up runaway marbles’ design for the title. Cricut did not like this for the record.

Anyway all the books are in the hands of their new owners, so now I get to show them off!!

But before that I want to say thank you to my bidders for their generosity and their patience, runawaymarbles for making their typeset available- an obviously labor of love! And to marvel trumps hate for once again hosting such a successful event!

[sammialex]

Honorary book 69 (actually book 70) ✅ is a hollanov anthology bind event run by @phoenixortheflame and citrusses!! All of the included fics are free to read on ao3. This was such a fun event to participate in 🥹 this bind has a fully paper cover designed in silhouette studio based on the original heated rivalry cartoon cover with layered leather paper and shiny paper (both from Hollanders), hand foiled title down the spine, and woven hand sewn endbands, the top in Boston colors and the bottom in Montreal colors. A joy to create!!

[sleepyfoxbindery]

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, typeset by Canon in D Press who I know is on tumblr but I can't find right now! My first time doing a (deliberately) rounded spine, and I definitely messed up by not considering the grain of the Bristol board I used to back the spine, resulting in creases. Bookcloth is from Hollander's, either Allure or Verona, whichever is the shinier one. Paper also from Hollander's -- Florentine Print Flowers on Navy -- although I think PaperSource has it too. HTV is FrogVinyl Copper Pearlescent -- it is much prettier than it photographs.

[cover-story-bindery]

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting up with @sammialex, @drgrlfriend, and Emdash for bookbinders' weekend! It was so much fun! (we also had Girl's Night Out, which was equally fun for totally different reasons). I got to learn how to marble paper, and we also did a mini materials swap (which, lbr, I mostly participated in by Acquiring Things as traveling meant I didn't have much of my own stash to share) and this is the first bind I made out of stuff I either made or acquired over the weekend!

I bound My Heart Will Be Your Home by @drgrlfriend using @sammialex's typeset, which is so beautiful and perfect and cannot be improved upon! The bookcloth is also from Sammi, a really beautiful leather-like material that we think was intended to make purses, but it makes an absolutely gorgeous book. The endpapers were hand-marbled by ME, though I definitely made them in EmDash's basement under her watchful eye 😂. This was my first time making homemade endbands from scraps of the endpapers so they would match, which was super easy and really fun.

Guys, it's just really neat to hold something in your hands that you made out of a bunch of different stuff your friends gave you. It's like the physical embodiment of love!

[cover-story-bindery]

Today I learned how to marble papers - many thanks to Emdash-binds for the lessons!!!

[cover-story-bindery]

So for Christmas this year I made ... so many books. SOOOOO many books.

And took so few pictures of them. Because I am a silly shit.

Luckily I still have access to several of them, and also luckily some of the people I gifted them to are willing to take photos for me, so I can show them to you!

This one was for a dear friend of mine (I asked almost everyone what their favorite book is, in a totally transparent effort at making personalized gifts for my favorite people), who told me the heartbreaking story Bridge to Terabithia is her favorite book. Which honestly explains so much, but let's not go there. She's a wonderful person who was also kind enough to send me these photos!

The bookcloth is Ice Blue Wooqu fabric, and the endpapers are Thai momi marbles in Calypso. I designed the cover and back designs myself in Cricut, using a font called 'Love Fairy' and downloaded from... somewhere (dafont?). The HTV is Vinyl Frog chameleon shimmer (it's supposed to be purple to black chameleon but tbh I only see the glitter in it personally, but it did iron on nicely!)

[cover-story-bindery]

Just a small thing today!

I am trying my hand at different types of binding (like the screw post binds) and this week I did my first long stitch binding!

It’s for my sister, who has to have period-appropriate accessories on the weekends because she’s a stage hand type person at the local renaissance festival (her spouse is a character actor!) so I wanted her to have a notebook she could carry around!

It’s bound in leather because honestly I’m trying to get rid of the leather, leather is the devil with a beautiful dragon lining paper I got from Hollander’s. The paper is the same Neenah royal sundance I used for photo backing in the screw post albums - I’m told it’s good for sketching and watercolors though cannot confirm. I attached a cord of thin leather to tie it shut, and sewed it with gold waxed linen thread from Oregon Art Supply! I stitched it with French links because that’s the sewing I’m most familiar with, but I’d like to try something different next time - although it does look pretty!

I’m planning to make a matching one for her spouse sometime soon - turns out handmade books make great Christmas gifts!

[cover-story-bindery]

I made a second one for my brother-in-law :)