#fanbinding backlog

[heliotropepajamas-books]

Fanbinding: Vulcans are Fangirls Too

Bind #9

Vulcans are Fangirls Too by @jouissants

Date Completed: 12/28/2024

Size: Octavo. 10,838 words, 116 pages.

Copies: 1 (for now...)

My former college roommate has been obsessed with Star Trek since she was a kid, 100% shipped Kirk & Spock, but had somehow missed the world of fanfiction.  Since we routinely give each other whatever strange new craft we’re learning, she needed a fanbinding gift for Christmas.  I wanted a fic that was short enough that it didn’t feel like I was giving her an assignment but still long enough to have a real plot, plus not too fluffy and not too angsty.  "Vulcans are Fangirls Too" was the goldilocks fic.

I am now in love with Octavos (8 pages per side of printer paper).  They’re so small and cute and perfect for stories around the 10,000 word range.  I had fun finally using the “command gold” bookcloth in my stash and I think I’m finally getting the hang of HTV - it turned out nearly perfect this time.

Formatted in LibreOffice Writer with Liberation Serif as the body text font, Eras ITC for the title page and page numbers, and Federation Classic for the spine title. There are several letters in this story so I used the Ink Free font for Kirk's handwriting and Segoe Print for Spock.

Finished late at night right before going to visit and exchange presents the next day.

[gargoyleandgremlinpress]

I'm declaring it the week of the pamphlet bind, because this is the second of three I've got in my backlogged queue of fanbinds to share.

Sometimes, a vaguely ridiculous idea gets ahold of you and won't let go.

When I discovered that there were not one, but TWO short MDZS modern AU fic with the incredibly specific meet-cute premise of "character A encounters a swarm of bees, and character B is the beekeeper who rescues them," I decided I needed to bind them. Together. And they were both short, so a quick pamphlet bind was the perfect solution.

I think I did this two summers ago, and would probably do a bit better with the text placement on the cover now, but I stand behind all the bee theming in the typeset unreservedly.

There must be something about the Twin Jades of Lan that not one, but TWO authors looked at them and said, you know what? Beekeeper.

So here we have, both with awesome titles, Save the Bees (Ride a Beekeeper) by @ariaste and Covered in Bees by @scarlettohairdye.

Public domain images, cardstock cover, sewn with some orange crochet cotton, because god knows I have enough random thread around. To make up for the disreputable cookie sheet used for an atmospheric industrial space background in my last post, this one is photographed on the orange and yellow stripes of a rainbow plain-weave tablerunner I wove out of the accumulated scrap basket at the weavers' guild.

And lovely authors, if either one of you would like a copy, I would be happy to make you one, or share the digital files with you.

[finalfrontierpublishing]

hello, i’m Final Frontier Publishing, a parody publishing house / bindery involved in fannish bookbinding. basically, i’m an amateur fanbinder who picked up bookbinding in July 2022 and largely bind fanfiction. i’m part of Renegade Bindery, a collective of binders that bind fanworks! i also belong to a subset of members under the Renegade Bookbinding Guild where i have committed to upholding the code of conduct here. i am mostly active here on tumblr. If you’re interested to see what projects i’ve done, you can refer to the ‘my books’ tab or click here. 

my interests are varied and as such, the fandoms i bind in are diverse depending on what is my jam at the moment. i also have an interest in binding queer fandoms and fics which may not be as frequently seen in the bookbinding fandom sphere. i handbind fanworks mostly for myself, fandom friends and sometimes the body of work’s author. 

tumblr main: @charlietinpants, AO3: charlietinpants

Thoughts on commissions: 

i’m very grateful that people like my bindings and it’s such a compliment for me that people would like to commission my work. however, I currently do not take fanbinding commissions, and am unlikely to do so in the future. This is as (i) i work a full time hectic job and my time to bind is limited and (ii) i’m very much an amateur at work, and wouldn’t want to attach a monetary value to my projects, and (iii) i firmly believe in Renegade Bookbinding Guild’s ethos of non-profit fanbinding and gift economy. as such, i bind author copies as a way of giving back, as and when time permits. 

Thoughts on author copies:

Author copy policy here.

If i've bound your work and you'd like an author copy, and won't mind that it might take me many months to get it to you depending on how long my to-bind list is, feel free to reach out to me. I hand-bind all my books from scratch and  may not be able to make you an exact copy (depending on available supplies), but I will try my best to make you something I am proud of and hopefully something you will love. All author copies are gifts, and I do not expect any form of payment, inclusive of shipping, from the author.

Thoughts on learning to fanbind: 

if you’re interested in learning how to fanbind - join us at @renegadeguild. we’re a great community of fanbinders who hang out on discord with different experience levels and everyone is very nice and extremely helpful. there are also free guides and lots of useful resources! i will be the first to admit that as a self-professed bad-at-art-and-craft person, i was very daunted at first while learning to bind, but i can promise you it’s less difficult (and less expensive) than you think! 

Thoughts on learning to fanbind in Asia: 

Learning how to bookbind in Asia is hard and case in point, I learnt largely through online tutorials and a brief course before my bookbinding teacher immigrated to Australia :sob:. I’m one of the mods of the Renegade satellite server for Asia, so if you’re a fanbinder located in Asia, please feel free to hit me up and commiserate about the difficulty in sourcing for supplies/classes/bookbinding/postage and shipping woes in general.    

Group Star Wars Fanbinding Project:

@celestial-sphere-press started a group star wars fanbinding project in hopes of being able to give as many star wars authors as possible a copy of their work, and i’m so glad to be a part of it. this may mean i’m occasionally in your DMs/tagging you asking if hey can i make you some book? pretty please? 

UPDATES (as of April 2025) 

i have just resumed bookbinding after approximately a year’s hiatus. at this point, it will be difficult to estimate my current pace. i’m still currently attempting to finish the backlog of books i owe (with priority given to gifts i owe and author copies). I still wish to preserve the quality of the books i make, and as such, I would thank you for your kind patience in waiting for the book to be completed.               

my ask box is always open, i do reply PMs and i love to chat about bookbinding! :)                                                                                                                                   

[heliotropepajamas-books]

Fanbinding: Ordinary Numbers by Bootsnblossoms & Kryptaria

Bind #7

Ordinary Numbers by @kryptaria & @bootsnblossoms

Date Completed: 11/30/2024

Size: Half Letter Folio.  44,163 words, 151 pages.

Copies: 1

This is a fantastic James Bond AU.  He may not be in the Quartermaster’s branch but Q can’t escape tech, and imagining him dealing with other mundane IT tasks in between his calls with James is hilarious. The banter between the two of them while Q is saving James’ missions is great, as are Q’s coworkers and the assumptions they make because a 00 agent knows him by name.

This was my first half-letter typeset.  I had a lot of fun choosing fonts for when James was leaving hand-written notes with his questionable gifts and when the two were communicating via computer.  Of course, after everything was printed and bound I found a rather glaring error, but such is life.  This is also when I discovered that you shouldn’t leave paper in prolonged contact with the bare wood of my press - it acted like a bit of a sponge and transferred enough extra moisture to make the edges of the page a little wavy.  It’s mostly noticeable on the top and tail of the book rather than the fore edge and trimming helped a little with the problem.  Still - good to know for future projects!

It would have made sense to go with very boring, understated materials for the cover but for some reason I settled on lime green endpapers, which dictated everything else.  I’d had this rather bizarre piece of scrapbook paper hanging around in stash since college so now was its time to shine.  Not exactly what you’d expect when looking at the demure navy blue of the spine, but it’s fun.

[heliotropepajamas-books]

Fanbinding: For the Glory of a Good Pudding by soft_october

For the Glory of a Good Pudding by @soft-october-night

Date Completed: 02/18/2025

Size: Folio.  109,100 words, 357 pages.

Copies: 2

9th and 10th books of Binderary

This is one of my favorite Terror fics - a modern AU where everyone is participating in a knock-off baking competition called Barrow’s Baking Boys.  

This was the first story I knew I wanted to bind for Binderary.  I started the typeset way back in early January and decided to switch things up a bit and give formatting in GoogleDocs a try.  The story had a couple different narrative styles - voiceovers and interviews for the show, plus some conversations over text (a first for the stories I’ve bound).  So in addition to learning a new typesetting program I got to find a way to represent those distinctly, and in the process learned that google docs doesn’t maintain its formatting between firefox and chrome.  (That was a lot of misprints/glue sheets…)

I’m really pleased with the overall look of these books.  I was going for a very classic style and ended up using some printed marbled paper I hoarded for years, with a gray and blue check cardstock for the endpapers to kind of get the Bake Off gingham vibe.  The body text is a very safe Times New Roman, with IM Fell for the on-air narration & interviews, and Quintessential for the titles. 

[heliotropepajamas-books]

Fanbinding: Every Longitude Leads by Acephalous (Illustrated by mcclintock)

Bind #6

Every Longitude Leads by @acephalouscreature  Illustrated by @mcclintock

Date Completed: 10/31/2024

Size: Legal Quarto.  32,475 words/181 pages

Copies: 2

I was itching to work on my next fic after Binderary and got author permission for this particular story pretty quickly.  However, I dithered for nearly 6 months before I mustered up the courage to ask the illustrator if I could include their work, since it was a Big Bang.  No idea why that was the more intimidating of the two.

I got into The Terror because my dormant childhood Franklin Expedition obsession suddenly realized there would be some “what if they survived?” fics and this is one of my favorites in that genre.  I love stories about people being competent and I really appreciate that this story gives Sophia Cracroft such a good role.

First time doing a full cloth binding in ages.  It took forever to get the HTV title and cover design to adhere and even now they are a little bit more “rustic” than I intended.  Still pretty pleased with the design elements though!

I was worried about doing the illustrations justice and ended up doing some surreptitious color print jobs at work after printing all the black and white pages at home.  I should have done it in the opposite order because I then discovered that the printer settings were just off enough to make the font size noticeably different between the two machines and I had to print it all over again.  Live and Learn and buy more toner.

The in-text illustrations came out fairly small, since this is a legal quarto (about the size of a mass market paperback). I had a few blank pages in the final signature so I added them on their own so they could really shine.

[heliotropepajamas-books]

Fanbinding: Impulse Decisions by listerinezero

Impulse Decisions by ListerineZero

Date Completed: February 27, 2024

Size: Legal Quarto.  42,763 words/193 pages

Copies: 1

Life got hectic, but I was determined to make one measly book for Binderary in 2024.  Why this fic next?�� Well, I found some battered scrapbook paper in the sale aisle of JoAnn’s and the print reminded me of this fic for some reason.  And I was feeling nostalgic, since X-Men First Class was one of the first fandoms I got into while the property was still current.  

Set with Times New Roman and a title font called Subway which seemed fitting for the New York locale. 

I couldn’t figure out how to contact the author for this fic - they hadn't been active on AO3 in a while and didn't have any other contact info listed in their profile.  If you know them on this platform, please tag them for me!  I’d love to make them an author copy.

[heliotropepajamas-books]

Many moons ago I posted my first fanbinding here and then neglected to upload anything to the platform for the next year. So bear with me as I work through my backlog.

Cute cat to make up for any potential spam:

[heliotropepajamas-books]

Fanbinding: Jeeves & the Inferior Valet by Alex5132

Jeeves & the Inferior Valet, or Thomas and the Kindest Man in England by @alex51324

Date Completed: September 10, 2023

Size: US Letter Quarto.  12,952 words/105 pages

Copies: 2

Back to Jeeves & Wooster for another crossover, this time with Downton Abbey.  Absolutely love this fic - Bertie’s tone of voice is spot on and Thomas Barrow’s general cynicism and bafflement at his benefactor’s behavior is fantastic.  Love the ending, and this is one of the first fics where I really get the Bertie/Jeeves pairing.

My Wooster & Wimsey Quarto Quartet is complete!  My title font choice, AR Bonnie, might not have been the best for a title of this length but it was too late in the game to change things up.  Still really pleased with how things turned out, especially with the title on the HTV title on the cover bookcloth instead of the spine (which was too skinny).

[heliotropepajamas-books]

Fanbinding: No Man's Land by ellen_fremedon

No Man’s Land by @fremedon (https://archiveofourown.org/works/34707/chapters/45833)

Date Completed: July 2, 2023

Size: US Letter Quarto.  20,077 words/175 pages

Copies: 2

Another Lord Peter Whimsey fic, this time with a Dr. Who/Torchwood crossover.  Lord Peter is caught up in the middle of an alien kidnapping plot and then more-or-less rescued by Captain Jack Harkness.  Plots and plans, innuendo and confusion ensue.

Book three in this series of 1920s crossover fics, and third fanbinding project.  Still using the same fonts, measurements, and scrapbook papers.

In progress shot with my new-to-me sad iron weight. And now continuing on with the slog through the fanbinding backlog!

[heliotropepajamas-books]

Fanbinding: Domina by AsMyWimseyTakesMe

Catching up on my backlog of books, I present fanbinding project #2

Domina by AsMyWhimseyTakesMe

Date Completed: June 12, 2023

Size: US Letter Quarto.  16,401 words/144 pages

Copies: 1

Sticking with my favorite 1920s characters, my next binding project was Lord Peter Wimsey set in a Sentinels & Guides are Known world.  While Harriet Vane wasn’t my favorite character in the book series I really like this fic because the sentinel/guide trope explains Lord Peter’s sudden obsession.  As always, we need more Bunter but there was a cameo from Bertie & Jeeves to tie it back to Green Ice (Binding #1)!

First time using HTV for anything, so ignore the gold gel pen touch-up on the spine.

I tried to keep things as close to my first book as I could - decorative paper from the same pack, all the fonts and measurements the same.  It’s going to be a thematic series going forward.

I don't seem to have the author's username if they're on tumblr, so please tag them if you know it!