Now that all three copies have made their way to the recipients, it's time to post pictures of my first end-to-end book bind!
These are copies of @robotmango's delightful Word of Honor novella, 'The wild geese.' Featuring arranged-ish marriage, Feral Gremlin Accidentally Falls For Husband, and really more self-mutilation than you might think for what's essentially a love story about finding freedom. I've loved this fic for a long time, and when I saw @rainsfalling's gorgeous typeset (mountain chapter headers! and scene breaks!) for @renegadeguild's Tiny Books Bang I was overcome with covetous glee >:D
...of course, then I had to actually print the thing, which took four separate goes around the Brother tech support phone line and a whole replacement printer, BUT! printer nemesis defeated, the bookmaking itself was a delight! This was my first time working with textblocks all the way up from a flat page to a book, and I was right, the sewing is the best bit. Naked unglued textblocks are extremely wobbly, though, and this is also very cute.
Another piece of technology conquered: my Silhouette Cameo vinyl printer (cutter?), scavenged from the ruins of Joann's demise and put hard to work cutting out so many tiny geese and mountain ranges. (Weeding is also very fun. Slightly less than sewing! But only because sometimes you lose pieces and have to swear about it.) Cover design remains a mystery, so I mostly copied @rainsfalling's interior design work ^.^;
One thing I knew I wanted was to make these three - one each for Rainsfalling and Orange and one for me to keep - to be sisters, not triplets. I got to try out faux double-core endbands at the Renegade Bindery retreat, and so swapping out a single colour in the endbands (and using different ribbons) seemed like a good way to change things up without making a ton more work for myself! (Pro tip, though: do not flirt with Thread Chicken while making end bands. It is very hard to keep an even tension with only two inches of tail!!!)
All in all, I'm extremely happy with these as my first full project, & I feel like I learned a ton. (Much thanks to all the Renegade folks, particularly @runawaymarbles for letting me come over & slicing chunks off of these with her guillotine, without which the edges would be a far more jagged affair.) They're real! They open! You can read them like real books! I... have already typeset & am partway through making three more octavo projects ^.^;
Soon my shelves will be overwhelmed with tiny fic binds and you know what? I'm okay with that.
