#handbinding

[runawaymarbles]

Handbinding Project: My Immortal by Tara Gilesbie

This really started over a year ago, with a project started in the Renegade Bindery server: people would format different chapters of My Immortal, without knowing what anyone else was doing, and we would put them together into one file. It was agreed upon that everybody would disregard both good design and good taste. 

(If you click on each image, the caption lists who designed the page in question. I couldn’t include them all here, but every page is basically a work of art. Horrible, typographically hellish art.)

After raiding a Joann’s of materials I thought belonged in Hot Topic circa 2005 (before it just became Think Geek II: We Don’t Light Our Store,) I almost immediately tested positive for covid. So I made most of this over the last four days, and with varying levels of coherent thought and common sense. The process is documented in a thread here

[justheblueberry]

I Wish You Were My Husband by Feynite

book & clamshell box for @towns-end-bindery for the Renegade California Mini Exchange!!! THE REVEAL!!!! wow its been so long since i started this it feels kind of unreal haha

this exchange sent me on a journey through so many lovely fics and new fandoms that were a delight to explore! i have Learned Things about svsss and honestly the more i hear the more excited i am to (eventually!!) finally read it

about the bind itself, it was a bit of a ride. i learned like 5 new skills in total, including:

- cover cutouts

- suminagashi edges

- my first book box!!

- chisel trimming edges by myself, which, um, definitely couldve gone better but it was fine after a few hours of sanding

- using REAL TOOLS???? lost count how many times i forgot i have a bone folder and made my book arts teacher take psychic damage

i fiddled with the typeset for several months, but in the end finished the book like a month early. so naturally my hubris rose from the dead and decided that making my first box would be a great idea!

i finished it with like 12 hours to spare before i was heading to the airport because i never learn

big thanks to fran for organizing this and congrats to everyone participating!!! WE CAME!!!

[etherati]

My first REALLY tiny book, a bind of Four of Swords. A sextodecimo! This lil guy is about 3" x 2 1/4" and is bound with actual cards from the miniature edition RWS deck. Because of the fun tarot imagery I'd been wanting to bind this one, but it's so short, just about 5000 words, so it had to go really little :3

Printed on pop-tone white from French, spine and sword detail done with HTV. I printed the main narrative in black and the flashbacks in blue, for visual separation, and the endpapers are of artwork done for this fic by the incredible @sandwichartistdatzu !!

[miralines]

I printed and bound all of the fiction on the Mechanisms’ website!

[IDs in alt text]

Book pictured here with Algernon

Process images and notes under the cut!

I forgot to take photos for. A good amount of the steps. But here’s the signatures half-sewn together. I ended up having to print every 12 pages individually to get the formatting to work, but it was worth it!

Here’s the text block all sewn together. I used dental floss, since it’s cheaper and thinner than the waxed thread I have access to, and if it’s good enough for ballet shoes it’s probably good enough for binding.

This is what it looked like after hacking at it with an x-acto knife for two hours. This was to trim it and theoretically smooth the edges of the pages, but I don’t think I’m there yet.

Here’s what it looked like after I glued the spine and let it dry. Again, I spared every possible expense, so this is regular elmer’s glue rather than PVA glue.

Here’s the cover half-prepared. I used this tutorial (video) to make book cloth with tissue paper and a fat quarter, and glued it to cardboard I had lying around.

Ignore the crown pattern on the paper; it’s what was on the backside of what I used for the endpages and spine. Here it is (almost!) ready to be glued together!

Aaand here’s it actually being glued together. I don’t have a book press or much counter space, so I used heavy books and a lap desk. It opens a little wonky and has some other quirks, but overall I’m pretty happy with how it came out, especially since it was my first time using a lot of these techniques! Next time I’m definitely not going to use paper for the headbands, since one of them popped off when the spine flexed, but c’est la vie.

[mizurda]

my ofmd book, titled “LIGHTHOUSES”

black leather bradel half-binding with pale blue and black sewn linen endbands and chiyogami sides in the closest pattern i could find to evoke The Robe, black with gray skull pattern pastedowns and endsheets with pale blue backing, and steely gray foil hot stamped title along the spine and tooling along the edges of the spine piece and corners

[solmu-bindery]

A handbound coptic-style journal I made as a birthday gift for a friend. This is actually the third such notebook I've made - the other two have also been gifted away.

The paper in the text block is a tad heavy (160gsm) for my liking but I've had troubles finding the right paper for A5-sized books. I would prefer to buy my paper locally (for several reasons), but I'm starting to get desperate and will have to look into online options.

The cover paper is actually wallpaper from a sample pack I got for free. They're beautiful, high-quality and I've used them as a cover material for all of my binding projects thus far - books and pamphlets alike.

When binding, I tore into the paper several times trying to keep the stitches tight. I also had to reattach the second cover because I'd forgotten to link stitch it in the middle lol. 🤦‍♂️

[owlsnestbox]

I've spent the last few days handbinding an AO3 story called Each to Each (with the author's permission). I read it years ago, and it's stuck with me, so I went ahead and bound it. It's hardback and fairly simple, but I think it came out alright. Might come back to it later.

[psramek]

Handbound Books Catalogue

I have just updated the catalogue of my handmade artist book editions. It can be viewed at: https://www.sramek.ca/sramek_bookworks_cat_sep2022.pdf

[mllebleue]

I was looking for a simple hardcover for my softcover notebooks and the market did not provide. So I taught myself cartonnage and made one. It's not perfect. There are glue stains and stuff, but it's what I wanted. I used tutorials by Colorway Arts on YouTube. Very happy with it.

[timothybindery]

In traditional binding. The raised band (false band) is one of the dificult thing I need to cover during learning. It require so much skill relate to leather, from selecting, paring and covering on book spine. It also requires some hand tools like band nippers (pince à nerfs in France) or band tick. Until now, I can happy with my result after so long time trying to make it better and better. I will have a post to share about my French style band nipper, it is a beautiful and handy tool to help we have the neat and sharp raised bands. #bookbinding #reliure #reliuretraditionnelle #raisesbands #pinceanerfs #finebinding #leatherbindings #leatherboundbooks #leatherboundclassics #bindery #bookbindery #bookbinder #handbinding #bandnippers https://www.instagram.com/p/ChGuPEhpA1-/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[runawaymarbles]

Sheppard's Law, by @cesperanza

Version 3 of the fic I bound for the Renegade Bindery gift exchange! (you can see speranza and @gempothospress's versions here)

I had a lot of fun typesetting this--I took the epitaph motif from the section titles and ran with it. I have never seen any form of Stargate, so thanks to cesperanza and @annerbhp for consulting. Other things I hadn't done before making these three books: cover cutouts, or foil.

"I don't know much about Stargate," said I, "so I'll just put a Stargate on the cover. Should be pretty straightforward." I then proceeded to learn that foil quills were not my friend, that the cricut foil head was finicky as hell (it works beautifully on bookcloth-- but not on leather or buckram,) and in the case of this particular edition, remember too late that unlike leather and buckram, you cannot wipe glue off bookcloth with water. I think I might start taping wax paper over my covers when I'm casing in so that I stop having this problem.

That being said, both the foil and the cutouts were kind of addicting. So I might end up sneaking them into more books where they may or may not belong.

[justheblueberry]

handbinding of A Study in Scarlette by kittebasu

There are people who want to live forever, and then there is Shinichi, who just wants to live a little longer than this.

this bind has been in my head since i first read the fic like, three years ago. i dreamed up so many ideas for it, for so long, and now it's finally done! the typeset was actually done in early 2022, back when i was still using google docs, but it went through a few iterations because i was just. so. fiddly. with every aspect of this book. it needed to be perfect (as close to perfect as i, an amateur bookbinder out of my depth, can get) and it had to be absolutely over the top, to reflect the insane amount of love and care that the author put into the fic itself.

the first time i read this fic, i barely knew what detective conan was, much less all of the intricate plot details; i was just along for the ride, but by the end i was completely invested. i went back and watched through the anime as well as a few movies (it took me six months) and then read the fic again. and then a few more times. kaishin and the world of dcmk has utterly gripped me. it's 100% this fic's fault and i love it so, so, much.

i went through a few iterations of visual designs and i'm really happy with the little details i managed to squeeze in.

the entire color scheme is based around red, because 1) it's a murder mystery, 2) for scarlette shinamoto (and the title of the fic as well as the original holmes novel it references), and 3) the irony of "lady red" actually being red. the secret fourth reason is that i think red/gold is a super sexy color combo.

i sewed the textblock with red thread to reference holmes' "scarlet thread of murder".

another detail i love is the five yen coin bookmark, it was one of my first ideas and it turned out even better than i thought.

i wanted the endpapers to evoke a sense of the white marbled floor of the ballroom, with the glow-in-the-dark kaitou kid caricature being the luminol on the floor, and the little pops of red looks like blood that's been mixed in. i lucked out in that the other side of the endpaper was like a lavender-purpley color, i like to think of it as a little wink wink nudge to the color of the actual Lady Red.

the chapter pages got a few reworkings, but i'm happy with the illustrations i ended up doing for each of them. the chapter titles are one of my favorite things about the fic, each one has so much meaning packed into it and flows so beautifully, and i wanted to put as much care into making them pop as possible.

the cover was a linocut carving i designed and carved, which i then printed onto the bookcloth, and ironed on htv on top.

i also threw in a couple of my drawings of my favorite scenes.

this is getting way too long, so i'll end it here. i'll have a separate post detailing the process every step of the way, if anyone wants to take a closer look. this fic is kind of directly responsible for getting me into fanbinding, so it's safe to say it altered the course of my life. i now spend way too much time (and money) looking at book stuff.

kittebasu, if, somehow, you see this and would like an author copy, i would be honored to make one and ship it to you; i would be overjoyed to gift you with any art i have the ability to make, because the fics you wrote have irreversibly altered my brain chemistry, and being able to give back in any capacity would be a dream. (thank you.)

a few postscripts:

i am not selling any copies of this fic. partially because i believe in the gift economy of fandom as well as firmly keeping fanbinding a hobby that will stay unmonetized, but also because it took me months (years, if we are counting when i first finished the typeset) to finish this and i do not have the strength.

however, if you are also a fan of this fic and would like a copy, i honestly, fervently, encourage you to give fanbinding a try! renegade publishing and its discord server are an absolutely wonderful and free resource. i knew nothing about bookbinding and had zero materials when i first started, but i've learned so much thanks to the lovely people there. if you're still apprehensive about getting started, i'd be willing to share my typeset of this fic as well as answer any questions about the making of this book if you DM me.

[etherati]

The newest quarto binding, featuring my first hand-wound headbands - the four finished stories in the watchmen Carrefour AU. Cover design meant to evoke the idea of crossroads, along with marigolds, which were an important image in the story. I wrote these collectively with Daylilymoon back in the day, and it's one of my fondest memories. Daylily if you are still around, please reach out to me, I'd love to make you a copy too--and I won't even fuck up the spelling on the spine, for your version DX

Text is Sylfean, Trajan Pro for the titles and drop caps, Caslon Antique for the cover text. Chapter header graphic and back cover version of the Kalfu veve by me. The text block was printed on some rustic, thick grain paper that I bought ages ago at Meiningers and I have no idea what the brand was, but it seemed appropriate for an 1800s era story. Cover and endpapers are art paper also from the art store. Siser metal HTV as usual.

I cannot believe I misspelled the spine, aughhhhhhhhh

[alpinelogy]

been playing around in indesign with theoretically collecting my favorite graphics, getting them printed out properly, and then binding them on my own cause i like a good arts and crafts project and ive handbound stuff before and wdym i only have four graphics i like that used black as its base color? i thought i had way more?

[emeraldgreaves]

continuing working through my book arts backlog: last year i read la dame aux camelias and it took over my brain. after that i started noticing camellias everywhere, and since it’s in the public domain, i decided to bind it!

this is my second shot at the secret belgian binding; sewing tension’s a bit loose this time around, but i did get to maximize surface area of the shimmery camellia paper.

post editor’s broken, read it here: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2419/pg2419-images.html

[bedlund]

hey regarding your recent post, are there prints of down to agincourt? if so, i'd love to have details for it! i'd really like to read dta but can't stand online fics that long

yeah we love a printed version! i got this set printed through lulu.com but there are so many other ones too: 80's sci-fi, sunrise, paintings if you like one of these just message the creator and they'll send you a link to the google drive for the files you'll need. or you can start from scratch and bind them by hand yourself (like so) if you're looking for a new hobby to take over your life lol