Overcast Books

[fontseeker]

sorry if you've gotten this before!

The logo is probably custom. It has some similarities to DeVinne Ornamental (circa 1900) [Daylight Fonts · Fonts In Use · Identifont]:

The credits are in Chesterfield (1977) [Daylight Fonts · Fonts In Use · Identifont]:

Chesterfield is loosely based on Jupiter (circa 1888) [Daylight Fonts · Fonts In Use], from the same era as DeVinne Ornamental.

[mythrilthread]

necro elysium (yuck!!) by @mercyisms

A confession: I LOVE fics that use the Disco Elysium format, and The Locked Tomb is just the perfect fit for this type of AUs (and going over the top with book design). And this one is so so so good!

🫀 I knew I wanted to mimic the layout of the text in DE basically as soon as I finished reading and saw the gorgeous illustration by @smapis.

🫀 The cover is inspired by the description of the card, but instead of trying to recreate it exactly (and messing with glitter) I went for the same theme and the kind of DIY arts and crafts style project vibe. Hence my first buttonhole stitch binding, with the heart painted with chromatographic ink (the color is called Unicorn’s Tears) and inked it over in hot pink with a glass dip pen. I also painted the folds of the pages and filled in some of the frames (where the narrator is YOU).

🫀 The rest of the portraits are cropped out of the aforementioned gorgeous illustration, except for Jod’s, which is a photo of a black hole (presented without comment).

🫀 I always want to play with textures for TLT fics, so this time the cover is black felt over a pink gift bag with nice leather-textured pink endpapers, and the textblock paper is a gorgeous 125gsm half-cotton that bravely took everything I threw at it.

I had so much fun working on this 🥰

[nana-glass-chillhop-radio-hour]

Inset Covers on Sewn Board Binding

I have found that the sewn board binding method is much more approachable than the case binding method, since with sewn board binding, there is only minimal use of adhesives (and no nerve-wracking moment of truth when you run the risk of gluing the cover to the text block upside-down). However, since the case binding method is more popular with fanbinders and amateur bookbinders online generally, I haven't been able to find as much in the way of guides for more decorative cover elements for sewn board binding. Here are my notes from figuring out how to adapt the sewn board binding process to make a recessed inset in the front cover for the title on the cover of my most recent fanbinding process for @bettsfic's ghost in the pearl.

1. Make a model I had so much trouble conceptualizing what steps would have to be taken in what order that I made a tiny model out of scrap paper to guide the process of the actual assembly.

2. Make endpapers This was my first time using laminated endpapers (see DAS Bookbinding's videos on made endpapers for more instructions) and I wasn't sure it would be compatible with the sewn board method either, but it turned out in the end! You will need 2 sets of made endpapers for each copy of the book you're making, so I made 4. If your decorative paper has a right-side up, keep in mind when attaching the decorative endpaper to the plain colored paper that will sit next to the text block that the two sets of made endpapers will mirror each other, and check what direction the pattern is going before tipping the decorative paper to the colored paper. (Colored paper is a misnomer here - the colored paper I used is only a shade or two darker than the paper I used for the text block). Fold the final page of colored paper around the back to the text block - this is now your waste sheet.

3. Fold and arrange signatures The order of your signatures goes like this: card/stiff paper (which will hold your board), made endpaper, text block signatures, made endpaper, card/stiff paper. Get them in the right order, then punch holes in the signatures and sew them together. Line the spine at this stage as well.

4. Make your cover art, pick your cover art, and decide on placement I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted for the cover art, so I experimented with a couple of different options. I was making 2 copies, so I decided I'd pick my 2 favorite options. Then came deciding where the cover art would go and how much would be visible through the inset. Keep in mind where the spine stiffener and board coverings will be placed as well when deciding on your inset placement.

At this stage, you'll also add your board (or whatever you are using to stiffen the covers, like cardstock. Since this was a quarto-sized project, I didn't use board, just a piece of heavy cardstock.)

5. Prick corners, cut inset, and adhere title art to inner cover Place a piece of cardboard or scrap bookboard between the front cover and the decorative endpaper to protect the pages beneath. Close the book and put your cover art where you want it to ultimately go. Then prick the corners of where you will be cutting out the inset with an awl. (I wasn't using bookboard, so I didn't have to use much force to get the awl through the cover and cardstock stiffener.) Now, both the cover art and the cover have been punched where you want the edges to be.

Remove the art and the protective cardboard/scrap bookboard, and take a pen and mark through the holes you punched to show you where to paste the art.

Open the book so only the outer front cover is against the cutting mat and cut out the inset with a knife and ruler. (I didn't take a photo of this stage and wish I had!)

Then cut the art to the appropriate size (ideally a little bigger than the inset window, line the corner pricks on the cover art up with the pen marks on the inside cover, close the outside cover (with inset cut) to check fit and make final adjustments, and adhere cover art to inner cover.

6. Make and adhere spine and adhere covering material to covers

Once again, I didn't take as many pictures as maybe I should have at this stage? I used bookcloth for both the spine and the covers. I did find it was pretty forgiving and molded easily around the inset window while the adhesive was wet.

7. Adhere covering material, cut out window, trim window edges, and adhere around board Again, open the book with the front cover facing down. Align your ruler on the diagonal to 2 of the inset window's corners and cut. It helps to be very precise here and cut as far as you can into the corner itself to aid in the process of folding the covering material around the board. Then trim the inset flaps so you don't have so much material to work with and fold it around the cover. Adhere with PVA or your adhesive of choice.

8. Adhere sides of inset window to cover art page+inside of front cover (optional), then adhere head, tail, and fore edge to cover I found that I was concerned there was too much of a gap between the outer and inner part of the front cover near the inset window (you can see it in the picture below - you could easily slip a piece of paper in through that window!) so I decided to glue it down. At this point, I started to feel I was using so much PVA that this project was kind of bending the original "minimal adhesive" ethos of the sewn board binding, but it's still a lot less harrowing than a cased-in book, I suspect. So that optional, but recommended. Once you have done that, adhere the head, tail, and fore edge for the front and back cover. You will no longer be able to open the book to see the inner front cover folio with the cover art attached - the cover will now open as one leaf.

9. Paste down endpaper and tip on decorated endpaper to first page of colored paper to form the laminated (or "made") endpaper

You are very nearly done now! Just finishing touches to cover the inner board and the plain reverse side of the decorative endpaper! As you can see from this picture, the decorated endpaper and the darker tan paper are not glued all the way through - just at the fore edge - but you wouldn't know it unless you intentionally tried to open up that leaf and see inside of it, like I'm doing here.

10. Admire the results!

A couple little design notes for this project: I have never seen Westworld and read this fic solely on the strength of my admiration for betts' writing and the tags, but I understand that it is Western primarily in an aesthetic sense. Still, the fic itself is also a bit Western in an aesthetic sense, so I went with a map of the US from the early 1900's for endpapers and went with an earthy sepia color palette for the bookcloth and cover art. I also wanted to add some slightly more futuristic elements (since some of the main characters are, crucially, robots), hence the title font, and some more delicate feminine elements to hint at the fic's contents and themes (hence the florals and the dusty pink for one of the covers).

I was delighted to send betts a copy, which she got earlier this week! Thank you for writing this fic that has haunted me for years and generously giving me permission to share this tutorial inspired by this lovely work! (Go read something by betts - she has written in literally so many fandoms, you're bound to find something you like!)

Notes for a next project: This was kind of "easy mode" to test this method for making insets with the sewn-board method, since this fic was ~7k and only required 2 signatures in a quarto format. For a future folio-sized project, my plan is to use 1 single piece of 3mm board for the back cover and two pieces of 1.5mm board on top of each other, one that I cut the inset into and wrap the covering material around, and one that I leave whole and attach to the inner leaf of the sewn-in cover sleeve. I don't know how well that will work, but I think that will give the best results if I can figure out how to do it!

Feel free to shoot me a DM if you have any questions about this, and I'll do my best to answer them!

[laurelnose]

fanbinding: turnabout’s fair prey by yoon ha lee

hokay so. a while back I was thinking about how Turnabout’s Fair Prey is basically only still accessible because us sickos just keep passing around the direct link. and then I thought, I wonder if I could archive it physically? and then things, uh, got away from me.

This is an 84-page quarto letter (4¼" × 5½", trimmed to 4⅛" × 5¼") sewn boards binding. The cover is cut from cardstock & backed with silver lokta paper. I used spray adhesive because I was afraid to brush glue over all my fiddly little lines. The backing process worked great but the cut is a bit rough. I wouldn’t use a plotter to cut something this small and detailed from cardstock again, even with a 60° carbide blade. Next time: laser.

I adapted the Twine game format to the Choose Your Own Adventure format by just tagging all the links with page numbers. Links with expandable text moved to footnotes (sometimes nested footnotes). The body typeface is Warnock Caption and the display / superscript typeface is Titillium Web.

it is illustrated, because all good CYOAs are illustrated, and I did end up doing five even though I said I was going to stop at three. The full set can be seen here (not safe for work or tumblr).

98% of my involvement in the book arts is the sawbones rebinding I do for work, which mostly involves cursing the names of several major publishing imprints. it’s nice to do something where I have control over the structure for once!

...I made seven of them.

obviously i can’t keep a heretical number of books on hand, so if you want a hard copy of the paracanonical dubcon bodyswap CYOA, and you’re comfortable giving me a (USA) address, shoot me a message here on [tumblr]. I will mail one to you. Please be legally an adult and not deathly allergic to cats (mine got into the bookcloth).

[laurelnose]

typesetting!!

@a-voltage files for u and anyone else who wants to print and bind your own

you can work up a text block for any construction, but for anyone newer to the handbinding game, these are the resources I find most helpful for the particular construction I used:

Sewn Boards Tutorial by lowmountain

Variations on the Drum Leaf and Sewn Boards Bindings by Karen Hanmer

The Sewn Boards Binding by Gary Frost

Sewn Board Binding Part 1 (Part 2, Part 3) by DAS Bookbinding

Flexible Made Sewn-on Endpaper by DAS Bookbinding

[victusinveritas]

This artist hand-embroiders canvas "notebooks."

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

Candace Hicks

[mythrilthread]

This anthology took me a looong time to figure out, first composition-wise, and then the textblock had to wait for some month while I figured out what I wanted to do with the cover. ⚔️👒

💚 My main idea was GREEN, because I wanted to collect my favorite Zoro/Luffy pieces (about being deeply not normal about each other and also about inappropriate use of Gear 5) and use different Japanese woodcuts for each piece. The fancy linework in the typeset was inspired by @swordsmans's style.

💚 The endbands are a random assortment of greens, and the cover is hand stitched on nice emerald green linen. The feel of the book in my hands is well worth my poor pricked all over fingers (I am very new to any kind of embroidery).

The list of works is as follows:

ouroboros by @swordsmans

without guilt by Augment

the color of want by @okayprairie

the only animal by batman

captain's quarters by batman

bone-breaker ospreys mate for life by @swordsmans

burden of proof by batman

gearshift by @starshipcaptainjojo

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

✨📚Let's talk about fic binding 📚✨

I've had this in my drafts for a while, and as this week's Easter Egg hunt challenge at @st-loveconfessions is to rec fanworks that aren't fanfic or fanart, I thought now would be the perfect occasion to dust it off.

I've been obsessed with bookbinding for a long time now (my instagram algorithm got a bit confused for a while there and thought I was really into Dramione 😂), so I thought I'd show some appreciation for the wonderful individuals who do it.

There's just something about taking words and giving them an actual physical form that feels like magic to me, especially since the beauty and attention to detail that goes into these binds far surpasses that of mass-produced books. Not to mention the hours and hours of work fic binders spend on these stunning works of art!

Here's some insanely talented binders for you to check out:

@becomingfoxes binds can be found here. It's no secret that I adore her as an artist, and the way she not only binds but also illustrates all of these makes them just allover works of art, in my opinion. (Even though I might be a bit biased bc i already own two copies of my very own fics made by her, and they're among my most prized possessions 😍).

@overcastbooks not only shares amazing pictures of other ficbinders' works, but also did this stunning three-part bind of Who shall sing me into deathsleep by @teddywesworl. I could scroll their blog for hours!

@staymagical has me in awe with their stunningly detailed binds and especially the way they design their covers! So shiny and pretty and elaborate! ✨️✨️✨️They don't post on tumblr as much, but go ahead and check out their insta account!

@cupidofcrimeee is a fic binder whose works I first discovered on Instagram, and let me tell you, I squealed a little when they followed me here. I love seeing both their WIP photos and their finished works - they're so, so pretty, and put together with so much thought, and photographed so beautifully. Another blog I could easily scroll all day!

If you know of other fic binders in the Steddie or Stranger Things fandom, please give them a shout-out! I'm always looking for more posts on this amazing craft! 👀

[runawaymarbles]

Fanbinding: Merlin Ambrosius, King of Carthis by @clotpolesonly for @merlinmausi (Renegade Bindery Bound Fic Exchange 2024)

This was my actual first attempt at edge painting. Attempt 1 was to do gold foil with a hair dryer, which worked on my tests on thicker paper, but absolutely did not work here. I think I sanded it off like three times, after gluing all the pages together by accident at least once. I ended up resorting to acrylic paint, with a layer of acrylic ink over it for extra shiny.

Title page was mostly done by the heat foil head for the cricut, but for some reason it didn't do the last couple letters, so I stole a foil quill from a friend and traced them. The cover is also a foil quill: I made the design on Illustrator based on a pattern I found, and then printed and traced it.

The story with the endpaper is that I got it in 2012 at Hollanders (in person, moment of silence.) I loved it enough that I have not used it in the, uh, 11 intervening years. I finally decided that this had gone on a ridiculous amount of time, and also, it looked great with the cover. Problem: that paper really wasn't intended to be pressed against itself. It got itself extremely stuck every time the text block was in the press, and I had to very carefully pry it apart with a bone folder. (Eventually I remembered to start putting blank pages in between.)

The cover is moire, with a very cool sort of wavy pattern that doesn't quite come through in these photos. It's incredibly trippy to work with though because it throws off my depth perception:

[zhalfirin-binds]

WIP A princess of Mars

The case I had this bind on my table for almost a year, but it's coming to an end now.

After I came up with a design and the picked my papers I cut the design to size for a case sized template.

Then I cut the template down to the different onlays and the middle sections from the paper I want to use. Luckily I remembered to draw on the backside of the paper and also to turn the template around so I'd end up with the design I wanted and not a mirrored version. It really didn't matter that much here which side was front and which was back. More importantly the templates need all to be in the same orientation in order to fit together in the end.

One of my main worries are still the paper onlays in the hinges, more than one layer of them too. I'll see how they hold up to reading. I hope by pressing in the hinges with pressing boards those layers will hold firm enough.

I started with the cloth parts to have the seams covered and maybe avoid cutting it too close and end up with open cloth edges or strangely straight lines in the case. Those two cloths are almost the same thickness so they even each other out wonderfully

When I started gluing on the paper onlays, I aimed to have as few sharp edges open as possible. The idea was to start with the outer areas and have them each overlapped a bit by the neighbouring layer (In hindsight I should have started a bit lower, but well, I did not).

Another difficulty I ran into was the hinges. My boards are about 2,4mm thick, not an issue per se (except for one paper was really not into sticking to the board) but apparently working the paper down and over the spine, messed with the angle and lengths and I had to adjust the onlays to not end up with uncovered board.

I did not consider that I'd need a slightly different approach to avoid 'steps' in the design. when I drew this all up it was all flowing one field into another. It's not quite like that now that I finished. I think perhaps drawing on the front might have been a better choice after all, cut the mark away along the line where there is no overlap and leave the mark where there is overlap to know where you want to glue. I think that would be my approach should I do something similar again.

Of course, despite leaving room for overlap I ended up with a gap. I blame paper grain and unreasonable stretching or lack of it for this. It's not too obvious though and doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

[celestial-sphere-press]

Book Decoration: AKA All The Ways I Don't Use a Cricut

(this post is for people who don't want to buy an expensive cutting tool, or for those that do have an expensive cutting tool that would like to mix things up a little)

1. Print That Shit

If you're already printing your own textblocks, an easy step for titles is to print them. Above is a title printed onto an "obi" of decorative paper. I measured out where I wanted things on the finished book and laid it out in Affinity, then printed it on a full sheet & trimmed it down to wrap around the book. A more simple method is to print & glue on the label into a slight indent in the cover (to protect it). A third option is to do the spine in bookcloth, while you print on paper for the cover and then glue that paper onto the boards (this usually looks even better when it is a three-piece bradel bind).

2. Foil Quill / Heat Pens

The heat pen is one of my go-to tools, but it can be a bit touchy about materials. The most popular version is the We R Memory Keepers' Foil Quill (which is one of the most ergonomic), but other pens exist that can get you to a higher heat temp, finer lines, or more consistent foil. For example, I have a pen created by a local Japanese bookbinding studio that fares way better on leathers than the WRMK quill & with a finer tip, but it's hell to control. Best results in general are on paper or smooth bookcloth (starched linen, arrestox, colibri - even duo will work but its less solid). The fuzzier a bookcloth is, the less your foil quill wants to deal with it. This means the heat n bond method of making bookcloth does not play nice with a heat pen usually, but there are two solutions: 1) use this tutorial on paste + acrylic medium coated bookcloth instead that will get you a perfect surface for the heat pen, or 2) use the pen on paper & then glue onto the cloth. I did a video tutorial for both foil quill use and this type of homemade bookcloth for @renegadeguild Binderary in 2023.

You get the most consistent results by tracing through a printed template that is taped in place, as I do in the video above.

3. Paint That Shit

Acrylic paints will do you fine! The above is free-handed with a circle template, because I wanted that vibe. If you need straight lines that won't seep, lay them down with tape first & then paint over it first with a clear Acrylic medium, then your color. Same goes for stencils. Two more examples of painted bookcloth:

4. IT'S GOT LAYERS

By using layers of thinner boards, you can create interesting depths & contrasts on your cover. You can also make cutouts that peep through to the decorative paper behind. The most important part to this technique is the order in which each edge is wrapped. To get a good wrapped inside edge, you will split the turn in into tabs to get them to conform to a curve. You can also layer multiple colors of bookcloth without multiple layers of board, as seen below left, so long as you mind your cut edges for fraying.

5. Inlaid... anything

Mirrors! Marbled paper! I saw someone do a pretty metal bookmark once! The key is creating a little home for it to live in, which is pretty similar to the above layering method. On one layer you cut the shape, & glue that layer onto the bottom solid board before covering. You can do the top layer as an entire 1 mm board (like I did for the mirrors) or a sheet of cardstock, like I would use for inlaid paper.

6. Decorative Paper

Decorative paper is always helpful & adds to the paper hoard... & its effects can be layers with other techniques, as below. Marbles, chiyogami, momi, or prints & maps of all kinds can be great additions. Some papers may need a protective coating (such as wax or a sealer).

7. Stamps (with optional linocut)

While I've not used many more regular rubber stamps, I do know some who have, successfully! And I've used one once or twice with embossing powder (see photo 3 up, the gold anchor on the little pamphlet bind). What also works is to carve your own linocut or stamp, & then use block printing ink to ink it onto your fabric (as i did above). A bit time intensive, but it was nice how easily reproducible it was, and I liked the effect I got for this particular bind.

These methods are not exhaustive, just ones I've used, and there are of course many others. I haven't gone too into detail on any of these for the sake of length (& post photo limits) but feel free to ask about more specifics. Usually I'm using them in combination with other options.

[plor-bindery]

Bound: Long Haul by @wolfpants

As a writer, I often am fondest of my shorter stories, but these fics are not the obvious choice for binding because they're so little. I actually started setting this story a while ago but put the typeset aside when I realized it was going to be such a low page count.

But more recently, I have been experimenting with a pamphlet bind to see if short stories and/or text blocks can be bound to my satisfaction, and yep! They can!

I love this short story by wolfpants and I have read it often enough that it deserved to be bound and put in my library. The story contains lovely delicious smut and (as you'd expect from wolf) excellent character-building, dialogue, and just exactly the right amount of realism. Wolf writes true adult characters and I adore this about their writing.

More about process and materials under the cut!

Materials: This is a quarto letter pamphlet bind using letter-sized 24# paper. The end papers are chiyogami acquired in Montreal. Book boards are actually cut from matte board that came in some packet of supplies or another, about 1 mm thickness and quite a bit bendier than my usual 2 mm book board, but worked nicely and feels appropriate for this little baby.

Book cloth is wooqu off Amazon as per. I sewed the pamphlet using three strands of waxed embroidery floss. Spine is strengthened with mull and a little strip of the same paper as the text block. Cover decoration is HTV vinyl. A few titles are foiled with toner-activated foil and a laminator. (Big shout-out to @sits-bound for technical assistance with figuring out that process!)

Process: This is a sewn 64-page/16 sheet quarto. I followed DAS Bookbinding's YouTube video here pretty closely except (as you can see) I went for a full cloth bind. I also added the paper layer on the spine before wrapping in cloth. I did this because I found mull alone — at least my cheap-ass mull — was not making for a smooth spine. The paper was a huge help on this front.

This is actually my third attempt at this style of binding (not counting the versions I did in class under adult supervision) so please do not be too impressed, lol.

The whole thing is held together by 50/50 corn starch/PVA mix (as well as the thread.)

I trimmed the tail twice by accident so then I had to trim the head twice too, and so that's why my margins are slender. :D

The HTV decoration was designed by yours truly (if you look at it for very long you'll be like "oh yeah I can see that" ahahaha) but I was really pleased with how it came out. I think I'm FINALLY finding my successful approaches for applying HTV. And yes, it was a monumental pain in my ass to weed. Worth it!

Peep the grease mark on the front title page. Sexy. No idea where it's from but yowza.

Bind short fic! Short fic also deserves binding! *steps off soapbox*

[pleasantboatpress]

Long time no post?

I made a photo album for one of my coworkers going on maternity leave. I really love the colours of this one, and the endpapers are STUNNING! (Do i have a paper hoarding problem? Maybe so) I also dyed the thread used for the stab binding pattern, so theres a slight variegated pattern to the thread. Unsure if i am ever going to attempt making a photo album again, i have dreams of using that screw punch on what ended up being only like 20 pages lol.

I found DAS's screw-post photo album vid invaluable, along with this blog post about the tortoise shell stab binding pattern.

Here's to hoping 2025 is more successful with me actually completing binds. God damn

[zhalfirin]

A princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs

Full cloth binding, backed with french grove and paper onlays, coloured edge and french double core endands.

The typeset was part of Renegade's Tiny Books Bang event last year, but it took me forever to get enough distance to come up with my own cover instead of copying the wonderful bind that was exchanged in the event.

This wonderful typeset was provided by @tinwhiskerpress

Materials used:

case covers - grey board 2,4 spine stiffener - cardboard covering materials - commercial bookcloth (Duo brick, brown) paper onlays: bugra bütten (yellow, green), marbled paper (by Renato Crepaldi)

inner book bookblock paper - Schleipen fly 05 (115gsm) endpapers - marbled paper by @renato-crepaldi endbands - buttonhole silk (Gütermann), leather core (1 and 2mm) edge colouring - oak gall ink and interference chameleon acrylic ink (Nebula copper)

Size: ~A6

[zhalfirin-binds]

Square antiprism box

Part I

(many thanks @queercus-books for finding out what that shape is called XD)

Over a year ago I saw this particular kind of box on the bookbinders fair in Leiden (NL). After having been recently reminded of them, I decided to give it a go and try to reverse engineer them from the pictures I found here (check out her other boxes, they are gorgeous!).

After staring at the original boxes for a bit, it was obvious they were not covered on the inside after gathering them. The pattern was visible in one consecutive pattern. It told me that a) the board was laminate with the patterned paper while still flat and b) the box was made from one piece, not single pieces glued together. For that the corners and edges needed to be scratched, but not cut through.

What stumped me in the beginning was what angle to pick for the walls. Naturally the base of each triangle had to be as long as the sides of the squares it connected to, but a too pointy angle at the tip resulted in long boxes that looked rather twisted than having that bulbous look I was looking for.

The solution (after some more staring and a few more paper models) was 'right angles'! Any square piece of board can be made into this box by marking out the center square and have the walls point away in right angles.

Next I cut away the parts that won't be needed (to make sure I don't cut one of the side walls off, I crossed them out). The net of polyhedrons for this box could look different than this and still give me this shape, but with the way the paper pattern is was not visibly interrupted I'm confident this is the net the Dutch bookbinder has used. (It also wastes the least material)

Now it was scratching the other lines just enough so they would bend nicely, but not get too weak to hold the structure and test assemble. Shallow cuts and test bending every now and then helps to get there (also a metal ruler to keep carving the same line)

Cutting the board half way through ended me up with those gaps though. I''m not sure how much they would show if I dressed them just like that, but I decided to not take the risk and reinforced them with a white paper just in case.

The white paper is really just a white strip of paper long enough to go all around the box and a bit wider than one of the triangles is high so I could have an overlap and reinforcement to the bottom too. Part of why I did this was also to see if covering the body would work as I thought it would. With the angled planes the strip of paper bends up and and down, but in the end it's still one straight strip of paper.

I let it dry a bit before adding another layer, this time with the patterned paper and turn in's on top and bottom. In hindsight I could have cut the turn ins to the inside at an wider angle to avoid them reaching onto the better visible part, but then. this is the first time I made this box so I take that as a lesson learned.

Now all it needs is a base and a lid and I'm done.

[celestial-sphere-press]

what kind/style of endbands do you usually do? they look so good 👀

hi!! sorry for taking a while to answer, I wanted to make sure I could give you my best answer.

I usually do what's called a "double core" endband. I use double core endbands over the "bead on front" method because bead on front style is not great for uneven distributions of color, irregular patterns, or using more than three colors. Functionally it works by having your extra threads wrapped up inside the thread that is showing, forming the smaller secondary core. Ultimately you are doing figure 8s around the main core & then your secondary core of thread. This keeps things pretty neat & tidy. The tutorial I first used was this one by DAS Bookbinding, though I don't think his endband tutorials are his best ones. Another binder I've spoken with endbands about a lot is maleeka, who recently did an endband tutorial herself.

maybe I should do one... but it takes a lot for me to get enough motivation to make videos. I'll take this opportunity to write up some tips I've shared when people ask instead:

1. Endband core material is the MOST IMPORTANT component. You need a core that is stiff but flexible - it should be floppy because it wiggle everywhere under the tension of the thread, but still needs to flex with the opening & closing of the book. You want something that doesn't compress, to reduce tension shifts in thread creating a lumpy enband. Have a smooth core is less critical but helps to avoid snagging threads & allows you some leeway on sliding threads around for adjustments. My personal choice is smooth leather jewelers cord (link is just an example, I get mine from a local craft store).

2. Thread size. All your threads need to be the same size; it will be visible if you are using two different sizes, and mess with your front core. Additionally, I know lots of people will use larger twists of multiple strands of embroidery thread, which can work, but is more likely to compress & alter its size in unexpected ways. A single strand is preferable. If you want something thicker you can find some thread weights that are heavier twists intended to be used in a single strand, not pulled apart. I prefer smaller sizes because it works better for the gradient designs I like.

3. Silk thread is your friend (if you can spend the money on it). It reduces fuzz (no fuzz like you get with cotton/DMC embroidery thread), it's usually easier to manage, has a more compact twist, and a higher shine. I use Japanese silk hand sewing thread in size #9 (9号). There's multiple brands (Tire, Daruma, KNK/kanagawa, etc). Here's a wholesale listing (minimum 20,000¥ for international). A non-Japanese brand is Guterman silk (German brand).

4. Thread tension is the most important part of the actual technique. You need to ensure the threads currently wrapped in the secondary core keep tension when you are working the thread around them.

5. Working on a curve. This is only really relevant if you're doing an endband on a rounded book, but the circumference of the curve means there's more real estate on the outside vs inside of the curve. Sometimes this can cause bunching on the secondary core. My own solution to this is that sometimes I wrap the primary core but drop a wrap here or there around the secondary core (only between two wraps of the same color I'm dropping). I uh... don't know of anyone currently recommending this besides myself so I can't point to any pro endorsement for this method, it's just what works for me. Forgive my terrible writing:

6. Pattern management. I... don't really plan much how my patterns sit on the spine, which is not very helpful. HOWEVER you can do some pattern management on the fly, if you really want your pattern to end at a certain place. Thread can be packed more or less densely on the core, resulting in some pattern compression; you could also strategically drop wraps in less noticeable locations. An unintended example: I was replicating the pattern on this endband (left) when I realize I wasn't packing the thread as densely as I had the first time around (right), which resulted in the overall pattern taking up more space. You can do this on purpose, if you need to.

this was way more than you asked but it gave me a chance to put all this in one spot. Best of luck in vanquishing the dreaded EndWyrms.

[judgeitbyitscover]

Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey

Cover art by Elizabeth Malczynski

Bantam 1977

For centuries, the world of Pern has faced a destructive force known as Thread. But the number of magnificent dragons who have protected this world and the men and women who ride them are dwindling.

As fewer dragons ride the winds and destruction falls from the sky, Menolly has only one to sing, play, and weave the music that comes to her so easily—she wishes to become a Harper. But despite her great talents, her father believes that a young girl is unworthy of such a respected position and forbids her to pursue her dreams. So Menolly runs away, taking shelter in a cave by the sea. Miraculously, she happens upon nine fire lizards that could possibly save her world...and change her life forever.

[bathynomus239]

glorious, one of my favorite covers of all time

[flieslikeamoron]

I have that one.

[canon-in-too-deep]

Free Dingbat Font Book For Dinkuses

I love dingbats. When typesetting, these little guys are so so useful. They can be applied as scene dividers (dinkuses), ornaments for headers/foots, borders/frames for chapter titles, flourishes for title pages, etc. I prefer working with dingbats over images, because, since a dingbat is just another font, it can be easily added and adjusted using paragraph styles or the normal font settings. Below the break are some examples of how I've used dingbats. So I love dingbats. But I hate sorting through them to find that one perfect vintage looking line to use. Thus, I threw this sample book together in a single morning so I could see all the dingbat options I had more easily. For the file, I wanted to make the dingbats large and easy to see, and wanted to be able to pick up a page to compare one font to another. As such, this font 'book' is formatted for regular letter paper, not my usual half letter folio.

Edit: I FORGOT TO WRITE WHERE TO GET THE FONTS! 😅 All these fonts I got for free. Most of them are from either dafonts or creativefabrica. Link for my sample book for dingbats here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XU2hAu94e9tXXe5ZQFkzB6wcNcriuBUH?usp=sharing Please leave a like/reblog if this was useful!

^Dingbats for decor. I love a good splatter dingbat.

^Dingbats as ornaments in the title page.

^Scene divider example. This is also called a dinkus, which is just a delightful word!

^Another scene divider example. This was for a Cthulhu story, so I went with something that reminded me of tentacles.

^I don't normally add decorations around page numbers, but in this case I thought the flourishes worked well to compliment the whimsical nature of the book.

Anyway, these are just some of the ways I've used dingbats. Dingbats are great, they're easy to work with, and have a ton of uses for typesetting.