Towns End Bindery

A collection of hand bound books created by ML Townsend of Towns End Bindery (@towns_end_bindery on Instagram). I also reblog books I think are pretty.

[towns-end-bindery]

A Game of Thrones Rebind with Handmade Box

This is possibly the most time consuming project I’ve ever worked on. The moment I thought I was done, some other idea would come up and the work would continue. That was how the process felt with this piece.

Photos of the book itself can be found in this post. The crown foil on the protective board piece came from Fable and Bind. The maps are from the 2011 Batnum Books Trade Paperback Edition of Game of Thrones. All other art is my own original design.

This was my first time making a box on my own. Before this, I had only ever made a clamshell box in a workshop at the International Printers Museum.

[towns-end-bindery]

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

This handbound book will be available for auction. Stay tuned for more details in September 2025.

Can you spot the castle on the back of the book?

[towns-end-bindery]

Epic: The Musical

Hand bound book created by me. Original lyrics written by Jorge Rivera-Herrans.

These are the title page spreads for every album in Epic.

Images of the cover can viewed here.

Artwork featured within this book include:

Ulysses Returning to his Palace after Slaying the Lovers of Penelope, Ordering the Women to Remove their Bodies. 1780-1820 Neoclassical. Nicolas-André Monsiau

Neoptolemus throws the infant Astyanax from the walls in front of the powerless Andromache. Public Domain, artist unknown

Polyphemus. 1804-1878. Friedrich Preller the elder

Travel of Poseidon by Sea. 1894. Ivan Aivazovsky

Lady Hamilton as Circe. 1782. George Romney

Aeneas Taken by the Sibyl to the Underworld. 17th century. Jacob van Swanenburgh

Ulysses and the Sirens. 1867. Léon Belly

Athena appearing to Odysseus to reveal the Island of Ithaca. 1717-1784. Giuseppe-Bottani

Odysseus in front of Scylla and Charybdis. 1794-1796. Johann Heinrich Füssli

Odysseus and Telemachus Kill Penelope's Suitors. 1812. Thomas Degeorg

Took me hours and hours of work before finally noticing I spelled Ithaca wrong. I swear to fxcking god, one day I will manage to typeset one book that doesn’t have a MAJOR typo/misspelling.

[lunareader]

Already posted a previous bind of Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, but heres an updated version I did, as well as a slipcase I made for the book

[keystonepublishing]

Can you sign the inside here? by @feriowind

So there I was, scrolling through the drivinglessons tag, and this fancomic came up and immediately grabbed my attention. A comic about Driver and Grace? Where Grace is a science idol? And Driver being a fan?

I immediately sought to make a bind of this fancomic. Specifically, it made me want to try hardcover pamphlet binding after a year since I last did such a format. For the covers, I stuck together pieces of leftover mounting boards and wrapped them with Japanese craft paper (because these boys deserve fancy things). I also sought to add-in the Tumblr post itself as well as some replies and tags from readers, as a way of preserving the fan culture surrounding this crossover.

Since it was so long since I tried hardcover pamphlets, I made some mistakes here and there. I also wished I had more space to put in more replies and tags by readers. But overall, I declare this fancomic bedighted!

Credit to @feriowind for the amazing fancomic!

[alabasterapricot]

Its finished! Hounds by @xx-vergil-xx, part two.

The cover is bound in SUEDE. I love suede. It marks with literally everything, is impossible to clean and the worst material I have ever tried to emboss vinyl onto but its gorgeous. Its like holding a flower petal. I love suede.

In light of that issue I made a protective dust jacket for the book, then because I accidentally printed it in black and white the first time I made two dust jackets, featuring Van Gogh's La Nuit Étoilée. The colour one is normal and the other is specifically for reading chapter 33 (you know what you did).

Endpapers and other decoration featuring various wonderful art for Hounds by @chrysanthemumskies, @notactiveartblog, and @fishfingersandscarves.

Inside:

Also, BURGUNDY HEADBANDS??? I love them.

Alas I do not have the copy I made of part one of Hounds with me, so I can't do a direct comparison; but this story was the first fic I ever bound, and is now the most recent; the hourglass has inverted; and it is to this day one of the loveliest things I have ever read.

[hotgreentea123]

work in progress for the bookbinding I am making for my little sisters birthday 🎂 🥳

[waterloggedowl]

It's done! I finally completed my bind of @cataclysmicevie 's TGCF rewrite No Paths Are Bound! This has been a project a year in the making. Typesetting this monster (~1.16 million words) was a herculean task. Affinity crashed so many times as I tried to import the text. Even breaking it into its 5 volume sections was a long wait as things loaded in.

The title/intro/chapter pages were designed using Canva. If I could change anything at this point, it would be the butterflies on the chapter page were white instead of silver; the contrast on the intro page is just stunning. The font used for the headings is Khiara Script which can be found on dafont. Body text is Garamond.

The page edges were painted using a set of stencils custom cut into removable vinyl. Weeding was a bitch but the results were absolutely worth it! Textblocks were all painted with a red base layer then went into the press. I had to line up all the textblocks and ratchet strap them together so the mural was seamless between volumes. The stencils helped me with getting basic background patterns down and outlining the finer details. After that was a lot of hand painting and playing around with mixed metallics. The clouds are a personal favorite part for me; it's hard to see in the pictures but the metallics really showed the painting direction and lent an added depth to the mural.

Hunting for fabric to use for the covers was a task. Without Joann's to fall back on, I visited basically every quilting fabric store in my area. I found some really cool stuff, but nothing that fit the color scheme I was looking for, so off to etsy I went. I wound up finding this wonderful pattern and was really happy with the quality when it arrived! The bookboards are completely covered in the fabric from edge to edge so when the leather was put down, there weren't lines that would show through after pressing.

This was my first foray into book charms and I think I'm hooked. They are a great little addition to the final look. This project also marks my mastery of double-core headbands! After doing 10 of them, I am finally getting consistent results and understanding how to get full coverage and even lines.

Overall, this was a monster of a project and pushed me in many ways, but I learned so much from it! I already have plans for when Evie finishes the sequel.

[lupeni-craft]

🇬🇧 For the first time since starting my bookbinding adventures, I decided to try selling at a market stall and went to local art markets. It was really great. Thanks to everyone who stopped by, took a peek, and bought my products. 💚 I’m now totally pumped to keep creating. 😌 Thanks also for the suggestions (linked journals and different types of paper weight will be coming). You’ve sold out all my tasks&notes blocks, so I’ll be back to folding paper starting tomorrow!

🇨🇿 Poprvé od začátku mé knihařské cesty jsem se rozhodl vyzkoušet stánkový prodej a vyrazil na umělecké trhy. Bylo to moc fajn. Děkuju všem, co se zastavili, omrkli si a zakoupili mé počiny. 💚 Jsem teď úplně načatý k dalšímu tvoření. 😌 Díky i za nápady (linkované sešity i různé druhy gramáže papíru budou). Hned od zítřka zase začnu ohýbat papír, zcela jste mi vyprodali bloky na úkoly.

[lunareader]

Here's my bind of Silly Hats and Party Favors by @nebrasska-alasska <3

Thank you so much nebrasska for allowing me to use your amazing typeset!

For this giftee, their favourite colour is green and favourite flower are forget me nots, so both the bookcloth and sprayed edges were green with forget me nots embroidered into the cover

The amazing artwork featured as Polaroids is by the very talented @mercurio-shadowz <3

Had so much fun with these binds!

[dooroftimebooks]

ficbinding archive: the office / beautiful bastard

the story: The Office by tby789 (Christina Hobbs), posted in 2009 published as Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren in 2013

set of first (or early state) trade paperback printings from Gallery Books, two signed copies of Beautiful Bastard (believed to be one signed by Lauren Billing and the other signed by Christina Hobbs, based on comparative signatures) as well as a signed edition (first or early state printing) of Beautiful Stranger, adapted from an outtake in The Office featuring other members of the Cullen family.

interestingly, the cover copy of even first/early printings of Beautiful Bastard reference its life in online-only spaces by highlighting "More Than 2 Million Reads Online--FIRST TIME IN PRINT", an oblique reference to its popularity as a fanfic and the first notable recognition that fanfics could generate readership.

although The Office pre-dates or is contemporaneous with Master of the Universe, Fifty Shades of Grey was published before Beautiful Bastard and, in fact, likely because of FSOG.

archive notes:

fan-created cover page from the archive on Perusing the Shelves (unclear if fan cover pre-dates tradpub cover)

interview with Christina Hobbs featured in Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World by Anne Jamison

Fated Mates S03.09: Christina Lauren on Fanfiction and Romance |Blissward Is How It Should Be

the binding:

rounded and backed casebinding (adapted/faux three-piece bradel binding with french groove)

oxford hollow spine

printed on churchpaper 24# warm white ("bookbinder's special")

made endbands

dubletta bookcloth

all interior text is rendered in Alegreya

there is a palimpsest on each chapter heading (and on the front cover) calling back to the original twilight fandom

[towns-end-bindery]

Photo Album

A gift for a family in Texas.

11-30-2024

[towns-end-bindery]

📖

My first time actually recording myself sewing. I’m pretty new to making reels on IG, so it’s pretty simple overall.

This is a simple Coptic stitch journal for a friend. I really like the watercolor leaf patterns of the paper I used for the covers. Feels right for the season as well.

There were several moments where I had to undo my stitching because I got carried away with the rhythm.

11-18-2023

[towns-end-bindery]

Kushiel's Legacy

by Jacqueline Carey

♥️💛💜

If you have never seen the original cover designs for this series, I don’t recommend looking them up. I’ve never liked them very much. It was for this reason that this series stayed in my mind as one that I knew I would rebind one day. I am not a great artist, but I was sure I could create a set of pleasing covers that could be proudly displayed on a shelf.

The book edges were marbled during the last SoCal @renegadeguild meet up earlier this year.

[towns-end-bindery]

08/04/2023

You can also find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/towns_end_bindery/

#bookbinding #prideandprejudice #handmade #artsandcrafts #handboundbook #diybook #diy #handcrafted #bookstagram #papercrafts

[tane-p]

Pole winner dark green vines fabric for my paperbag journal! My 5 yo niece claimed this one

[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.