This ficbind is a gift for a friend who requested it, but I read it before I bound it and it was amazing! Definitely recommend it. Binding details underneath the pics. It's a really enthralling fic where Jason Todd and Tim Drake get sucked into a situation where they have to rely on each other and develop an understanding while their family deals with their loss. All the Batfam feels and emotional trauma of a tortured past, basically.
Amazing typeset by @sammialex who also did her own awesome bind of this one!
Black bookcloth from Amazon, metallic (chrome-finish) silver and red foil, key charms from Amazon. Endpapers from Hollander's I believe although they might be from Sustain and Heal on etsy. Maybe hard to tell with the glare but there are little Red Hood and Red Robin symbols in the o's on the title. I think my Cricut blade is getting dull which made weeding all that text that runs through the labyrinth a nightmare -- the letters kept coming up and I could not get them back down again perfectly straight, but I think the wobbliness adds a little something to it in the end so I'm going to chalk that up to a happy accident despite the amount of cursing I did in the process.
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!
The second copy of Forevermore by dr.girlfriend. Had a much easier time with this one because I changed up the font -- Cricut Amertha, my beloved, you are so easy to weed. Pics aren't great because I was running out the door to post it when I realized I hadn't photographed, but the third copy is getting sent out tomorrow and looks very similar so maybe you'll see it again with better pics! Materials under the photos. Typeset by the amazing @sammialex. Fic was a gift for my marvelously-patient @marveltrumpshate auction winners, and these bound copies are going out to them as a little bonus along with a fanbind auction they won the next year.
Bookcloth by Amazon (Craspire linen bookcloth), as is the ribbon, ribbon crimp, and charm. HTV is Siser Easy Weed in Gold, which is a matte gold, and therefore hard to photograph. Tried to capture a bit of that with the different angles. Didn't photograph the endpaper in this copy but it's from Hollander's -- here it is from the first copy.
Transmigrating into the stallion novel he hates most is bad enough, but why did it have to be into the body of one of the protagonist's wives? Shen Yuan spends exactly two months dealing with harem intrigues, sullen maids and his husband utterly ignoring him before he decides to go on an extended holiday. Very extended. Surely no one will care if he just forgets about being married and becomes a cultivator, right?
I made this book for @waterloggedowl for the @renegadeguild annual exchange! It was very fun getting to return to Scum Villain fandom for this! When I started fanbinding I was deep in danmei fandoms, but I've been off in Star Wars for the last few years.
I was blessed to be able to use the chapter art by @sunshine-dies . Their work is on the dust jacket, and I got to do a couple of fun spreads like these.
Beneath the dust jacket the book is bound in colibri bookcloth, with crepaldi marble paper inset for the fan and foiled with silver.
The same marbled paper is also the endpapers! I diverged from the standard SY color scheme here for two reasons: 1) sunshine-dies' art is in a lovely blue hue, and 2) Shen Yuan is never Shen Qingqiu in this fic, so a color change in the theme feels appropriate. The endbands are done in my asymmetrical style to match, and I painted the edge a polarized blue on black.
Back to the inside - since LBH is the emperor in this fic and inner court drama plays a large role, I created a vector pattern based on one of the wood lattice screen designs in the Forbidden City. More traditionally speaking this would be within a rectangular frame, but I kinda like the rough edges.
This is a bind of Scowls and Sarcasm, a Stiles Stilinski / Derek Hale (Sterek) Pride and Prejudice AU in the Teen Wolf fandom by @drgrlfriend.
Bound in Plum Japanese bookcloth from Hollander's with matte gold HTV decoration and painted edges. The font is called Lana Jane; it may be a Cricut-specific font. The artwork is by @maichan808 / @maichan-art, used with kind permission even though it was created for a different fic, a Jane Eyre AU. I printed the art on blotting paper and sewed it as the first signature after the endpapers, to give it a little extra texture and mystery, where the image is obscured until you turn the first page of blotting paper, much like Derek's true character is revealed in time. :-D
I clawed my way into the light, but the light is just as scary by romcommie, binding by DCB Bindery
Summary:You're lying. You're leaving the important parts out again.
You're ignoring what's happening in the house, you're ignoring the red string
that's supposed to be
leading the way,
time-adherent.
Of course. That's because all strings
can be cut, all strings
can wind up dead ends, all things
can be taken away, including
time.
The string's not red because of the poetry of it all, bub.
It's red because someone's
bled all over it.
Ever since I found the beloved name, exiled, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it or the series it belongs to. Thank you to @bromcommie for letting me bind this incredible work for this year’s Binderary!
Specs:
Accordion binding with hardcovers and half A5 sheets as tabs, A6, 31 pages.
On the process:
This was one hell of a gauntlet, from typesetting free verse poetry to my first foray into accordion binding. I ended up quite pleased with the typeset, but it was impossible to take proper pictures of all the details, so please forgive my rambling description.
This singular accordion binding contains both parts of the series, which starts at either end of the book. Each side reads like a regular book, with coordinating hard covers, title pages, etc. The two parts are printed on opposite sides of the same sheets. So depending on which cover you read from, you’re getting a different book in the series. A few elements in the title, series, and other supplemental pages are inspired by the use of morse code in the poems.
Mirroring the narrative, all elements in the common denominator of all truth start off in red. The text then gradually turns black as we arrive at the end. This ‘back cover’ is where the beloved name, exiled starts on the other side. Similarly, the gradient is present where all elements start in black and goes to red, mirroring where the narrative starts and ends.
Given the two characters featured in these two parts and their journeys, the significance of these opposite colors representing their endings was so fun for me to execute.
The gradient is also most prominent and easiest to follow along the line on the bottom where the page numbers are, an exciting element to bring to the accordion binding. Except it was impossible to take pictures of the effect because the accordion expands into a very long book. But I promise the line on the bottom goes from red to black and vice versa for each respective work in the series.
The binding itself was really tricky, not least because the paper I used was very thin. Glueing every single page was finicky, tedious, and took a lot of trial and error. I refuse to discuss the skew.
Overall, this was actually a fun challenge to typeset and an interesting new type of binding for me to try. I just wish it wasn’t so hard to take pictures highlighting all the cool details I was excited about executing.
[ID: A collage of five pictures of a set of three small hand-bound books, along with a box to hold them. The first photo shows the books stacked atop one another with the spines facing the viewer, sitting next to the empty box. The box is covered in purple cloth and has the series title on the side in white. The inside of the box has blue and purple marbled paper. Each book spine is covered in rainbow iridescent cloth and has the title of each book, along with the volume number and author name, in white on the cloth. The second photo shows the books fanned on top of one another, showing off the cover material, which is green marbled paper for one book, blue marbled paper for another book, and white and gold marbled paper for another book. The third photo shows one book open to its title page, which has the title and author name atop a graphic that looks like a connection map. The fourth photo shows the same book open to the chapter title page for chapter two, which features a dropcap with the same connection map style as the title page graphic. The fifth photo shows the three books stacked vertically beside one another, displaying their endbands, which are gold and black for the green book, light blue and black for the blue book, and gray and black for the white and gold book. All photos are taken with a sparkling purple backdrop. /End ID]
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Thrilled to finally show off my latest bookbinding project, done for the @renegadeguild bookbinding exchange as a gift for @rainbownomja! This year, I bound @dragonmuse's series The Great Working of the Rest of Your Life, which is a post-canon exploration of the characters from the Misfits and Magic Dimension 20 campaign. I wasn't familiar with the campaign before starting this project, but reading through the fics compelled me to watch the series, and I really enjoyed both the series and returning to the fics again after watching it with a new appreciation for the story being told. It's a really lovely series with some great Evan Kelmp moments, and I can't recommend it highly enough 💜
More information and progress shots below the cut!
These books are octavo size, meaning that each book is approximately one-eight of a sheet of letter sized paper. It's been a while since I last made a tiny book, and I forgot how much I love working with them (and how comical they can look sometimes, especially when chunky 😂 one of them is about an inch and a half thick)
[ID: Two progress photos of a hand-bound book. In the first, the sewn textblock is stood on its end and fanned out to show how much throwup it has. In the second, the unsewn textblock is held in a hand to show how thick it is proportional to its page size, which is rather thick. /End ID]
This was also my first time making a box! I knew I wanted these books to be a boxed set, so I used DAS's slipcase videos to construct a covered box for them. It ended up being easier than I expected it to be, and I'm really happy with how they turned out! The marbled paper on the inside of the slipcase was done by me, and I was happy to finally have a good project to use some of these papers for.
[ID: A progress photo of two slipcases for a series of three handbound books. Both slipcases are uncovered and only have four sides, missing the tops. One has three books stacked inside it, checking the fit. The other is open to display the blue and purple marbled paper inside it. /End ID]
I'm eminently grateful for the extended timeline this year because these books took a long time. I definitely underestimated how much time it would take to construct six separate books and two boxes, even if those books were smaller than normal folio sized books. (In fact, them being small added extra time, as the printed sheets needed to be cut apart before I could begin assembling the textblocks.) I did most of the physical construction after coming back from the holidays, which also coincided with my headlong tumble into Heated Rivalry 😂 it became my background noise while binding, as well as my grasp on the passage of time. Turns out, six books plus two boxes takes about fifteen Heated Rivalries to complete 🏒
[ID: A progress shot of six hand-bound books, which are in the middle of being chisel trimmed. In the background, a laptop shows the end credits of Heated Rivalry. /End ID]
I definitely learned some things while doing this bind, and while I won't go into my mistakes, I overall think the books turned out really well! A lovely way to start my bookbinding year, and yet another great experience with the Renegade exchange ✨
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.
A fun fan binding project. This is An Ever-Fixed Mark by ninepiecesofcrait. It is very much rooted in nature, so I wanted to honor that vibe. Recently I have been really inspired by vintage covers! I found this gorgeous cover and wanted to replicate it.
I wanted to be very technical with this bind and so I worked closely with my friend @copticcowgirl , who is training with master book binder Mark Kirchner. She taught me how to make a hollow and build the case on the textblock. I did round and back this bind and used silk thread for true double core end bands (using a tutorial from @duran-binding). I splattered ink on my edges.
To create the design, I traced a vintage cover I loved in procreate and then cut the design in cricut.
The book cloth is duo Herb Garden and the over marbled paper is from Minnesota Center for Book Arts. The nature of duo cloth and metallic HTV made this difficult to photograph!
I also made the chapter notes into a little companion quarto because they were full of wonderful images and fun facts.
This project was a labor of love and one of my favorite projects to date!
