Simply Sithel

a mish-mash of hobbies Fond of bookbinding, drawing, sewing, photography, and more... have questions? | my reblog blog

[simply-sithel]

Owl v.2 was entered in the 2026 FOBA Challenge Book Exhibit .... and won the best "re:imagining" award (that year's theme). My ego has not quite yet recovered.

The default was "no touching" for books, with an optional placard of "Handle with Care" which I do not regret modifying with a strike-out, even if Owl's toe fell off sometime during day 3 and I had to use a real bandaid to repair him -- those yarn-wrapped-clay toes were not what I used for the nibblet's version! (and thus... not quite as robust as I was expecting - happy to learn tho! conferences = free stress testing!)

The FocusOnBookArts conference was a blast - I'm lucky enough to have been able to attend all 6 days of it and am still reeling from it. So many cool books and people and learning opportunities and craft supplies. Thankfully it runs every other year as it makes a beautiful interlacing with the Renegade Retreat.... different vibes but a lot of overlap. (the company of several Renegadians of course made it ever more delightful)

Am already eyeing the next one Wednesday, June 21, through Sunday, June 25, 2028 (Oregon) and hoping to make it (yearly-occurring event conflicts tho, so TBD)

In the meantime am definitely getting hyped for the just-announce April 2027 Renegade Retreat! I think I've just about recovered from the last one.... maybe...

[simply-sithel]

macro shots of some recent @aetherseer works

[simply-sithel]

Juggling getting-it-done with good-enough and doing-things-other-than-crafting. Am grateful for help of @runawaymarbles in fucking up my text block - appreciated the weighing of despair from destruction via chisel or plough vs destruction via guillotine.

Worst trim job I've done in ages - there's just a lot of steps and the thing I'm chasing (excess of spine) behaves awkwardly/in new ways with my setup... Used a sander for real on a book for the first time- thought of Cactus and how I wasn't wearing a mask (foolish!) The last two book-related deadlines were hit within about an hour of due date -- I'm really hoping to do better this time, but also travel has spun me around again...

Trains, planes, automobiles. Friends and family. Home cooked food and excessive heat. Soft beds, bad beds, beds that fold up into boxes. As always, am behind on posting -- but need to start somewhere

[simply-sithel]

Can we see inside the plushie books?

why certainly!

The typeset was optimized for Legal Tiny (pictured below), but works for Letter Sextodecimal as well (pictured above)

The inner margins are a bit tight, which means I highly recommend the approach of folding the folio centers first and then nesting them/putting the fore-edge creases in last. It's 1,000 pages (63 signatures) that are very small and should not be prematurely seperated - I trimmed every Tigger v1 signature by hand right before I'd sew it in. Owl & Rabbit were trimmed on a pro bindery guillotine and Tigger v2 is about to be chisel trimmed in my Tony Firman press via multiple passes/sections -- wish me luck 😅

There's something so very pleasing about holding the form. Just finished sewing Tigger v2 and was playing with it this morning- A joked I was an Ant Queen and it was my larva. So cute and bug like!

I uploaded the typeset for anyone who'd like to attempt it - I just ask that you let me know how it goes! 💛 (when imposing with the VIP, it requires the 4th page rotation option -- you can import it with : [page_orientation] page_orientation_4_radio via the new Saved Settings feature in v0.1.1)

[simply-sithel]

a one thousand page book of Winnie the Pooh this Tigger was a Legal Tiny where as Rabbit was a Letter Sextodecimal

[simply-sithel]

a year ago the Renegade Retreat was starting it was a good time with people but a dark & stressful time in life still hard to fully look back on highlights remain tablet weaving and seeing books in real life (and walking away with a few of them!)

the calmest, most peaceful memory remains sitting in a hammock reading a book bound by @no-name-publishing

[simply-sithel]

[simply-sithel]

As part of this year's Binderary I lead an absolutely un-recorded "Altered Art Mini Bind-Along" - was it fun? For me, yes? For others, maybe?

One of my most struggle-bus minis in a while - text was a random article pulled from the Net.... The important thing was that I/we DID "finish" just under the 2 hour mark! Success!

[simply-sithel]

a one thousand page book of Winnie the Pooh

[simply-sithel]

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Fanbinding of Gilded Chain by Sroloc_Elbisivni

Gilded Chain by Sroloc_Elbisivni

The throne of Iacon's Primes is draped in golden chains. The glitter hides how strong they are--and how impossible to escape.

Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationship: Megaton/Optimus Prime Characters: Megatron, Optimus Prime, Soundwave, Ravage Words: 3,710

I typeset Gilded Chain for the 2023 Renegade Tiny Book Bang, way back in August. Another member claimed the typeset and bound me a fabulous tiny book. However, while all of that was going on, I was also struck with a vision of a book in gold chains. It took me a while to puzzle out how to make this happen, but here we are now. This is now the second copy of Gilded Chain I have sitting on my shelf!

Here are some exterior shots. I embedded the eyepins in layers of thin cardboard, so they were sunk down into the covers instead of above/below/beside:

The endbands match up well with the chains despite being thread:

With a name like "Gilded Chain", I had to go ham with gold every place I could fit it in, which also includes the endpapers, the frontispiece, and the interior title:

On the inside I wanted to continue the them of ostentatious luxury, so the dropcaps are very elaborate. And the textbreaks are thematically appropriate chains:

So, this is a tiny book, letter-octavo sized. I have a terrible time telling how big are books in photos, so I'm experimenting with some comparisons:

Obviously the ruler is most accurate, but the shell is aesthetically appealing :)

I'm thrilled to have pulled of this cover! There was a lot of fucking around and finding out. @sroloc--elbisivni has their copy and has graciously allowed me to share with everyone online. Thank you wonderful author! I greatly enjoy this story, hopefully a bit of fanart tells you how much!

Also located on A03 here.

[simply-sithel]

this was one of the books I was lucky enough to read in full during the retreat -- the chains made for a fantastic reading experience!

[simply-sithel]

nothing like a travel deadline to motivate some over-ambitious work...

feeling busy but frivolous - making progress as everything builds upon the last

[simply-sithel]

Happy Edible Book Day!

Am thrilled to once again co-cheerlead with Lark [Frog Eye Press] @renegadeguild's annual curation of bad ideas edible "Books"! The only rules are (1) it has to vaaaaguely be "book"ish in nature and (2) you have to take a bite out of it

And my entry, for which I conveniently timed a delightful Renegade meetup in order to inflict it upon others. I remain impressed with how fun hanging out with these folks proves to be.

Shout out to Lark who continues to provide our super-rad prizes. I remain a corrupting influence on the server as this is the one "competition"/"competitive" event amongst the selection of other collaborative, gifting, educational, and/or generous activities put on year round.

{ you can find the slide deck of entries w/ link to vote here }

Remember, the @renegadeguild is a very serious bookbinding server

[silverbackwolf14]

So because reddit sucks and won't let me make a post there with low karma (I get nervous interacting online). so I'm asking Tumblr for help.

I'm making a tatting pattern that won't turn out and I don't know why. So I'm asking for help. I know it's unlikely I'll get any, but I need it.

The photo above is my attempt

This is the pattern I found on Pinterest.

Clearly, I can't get the shape right. I've tried different sized thread, reversing work when switching between chains and rings, and not reversing work. Nothing seems to help.

I know this is a long shot, but on the off chance someone on here happens to be an expert tatter, I'd love some advice. Thanks.

[simply-sithel]

Hey there - thanks for passing on the pattern (wish we had better attribution for it tho ! looks like it's Les Aiguilles Frivoles - Xinty). I've been chewing/stewing on it/the question for the last couple days. I remain terrrrrrible at tatting (it is so not a stoner activity) but I was wondering if the trick was switching which thread you do the circles on?

Thought it'd be easy to just, you know, tat up an example of what I was thinking to show and... well... I just wanted to share the results. Even if they don't convey they idea/success, they convey... something...

(this is the 2nd attempt at the shape and both times I've accidentally put beads on that 2nd loop -- I think I'm going to try it a 3rd time -- I "love" tatting 🙃)

If you want some better tatting help, I recommend checking out the Lace Coven crew over on Discord or reaching out to a couple of the Tumblr tatters - I've found @tenacioustatter to be very nice.

[simply-sithel]

Happy π day!!

baked at 8:30am - presented to friends at 12:30pm - stepped on by dog 12:45pm

[simply-sithel]

Passed the 1 year mark a couple days ago for the Villainous Imposer Program -- my bookbinding imposition tool. Gave a talk on it for Binderary over on the @renegadeguild Discord but realized I never posted about it here...? It's not exactly beginner friendly, but I find it damn useful. Took what I learned contributing to bookbinder-js and re-wrote things from scratch to support all the power features and impositions I could possibly want. (it's basically a free fancy web page)

The goal this year is to dial in addressing printer skew -- I don't know how to do it yet, but that's the fun of a challenging goal, no? I just really want at home text block printing to look as polished as possible. Am also thrilled that my cry for help during the talk actually rallied aid (bless Lele of @gildingthelelepress!! 🙏) and there will be folding animations 'soon' for the various configs.

Have paused coding-brain for a bit to return to the basics -- am binding a ~1,000 piece for Binderary (a Legal Tiny!) and have 12 signatures left (out of 60 😩) -- but am looking forward to tackling 2 new impositions when I cycle back to it.

[simply-sithel]

There's some really gorgeous books on display (and for sale) at CODEX this year. Was allowed to peek at a couple through the macro lens. Quality of craftsmanship stunning at this scale -- Sue Doggett's beading really caught my eye, her complexity of stitching and covering of the fish leather parchment onlay(?) is 👌👌👌 big fan of the overlayed textures

Karen Hanmer's materials were very exciting to see up close and I really enjoy the cohesion of Kate Holland's whole 'head' situation- gold to leather and all the shades of red... am sad that the neat shattered glass cover didn't work with macros

Twas lovely seeing several @renegadeguild folks out and about. Book stuff -- good times

Book Art Fair - Codex Foundation

CODEX X Saturday, February 7 – Tuesday, February 10, 2026 Oakland Marriott City Center1001 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94607 The International Bie