#the bookbinding and the fore edge painting both

[finalfrontierpublishing]

A Case of You by @epitomereally

Happy (belated) Fanfiction Writers Appreciation Day! For FFWAD, Renegade Bindery runs an event where we bind copies of fics for their authors and I was super excited to be able to bind this for a fellow bookbinder!

I'm rather new to the Drarry fandom but @epitomereally has been absolutely wonderful in providing fic recs and bookbinding advice. She is so so kind and I have enjoyed seeing the lovely books she has created for fellow authors, and somewhere along the way I hatched a sekret plan to bind a copy of her fic for her.

Some stats as usual:

97,262 words || 354 pages

body text: EB Garamond 11 point

accents: Bestaline Sans, Bell MT and Bembo Std

I had really wanted to do a design on the spine (both of us like doing some spine stitching as a design feature), so i really wanted to be able to put it in a bind for her. also my near obsessive fixation with spine stitching worked out in my favour because i settled on a constellation design and ran with it. the design on the spine is stitched with gold linen thread, and accented by some designs done in heat reactive foil.

for bookcloth, I settled fairly quickly on night sky blue so colibri elder made an appearance. I had a little trouble with colour matching for the endpapers with the endbands (i should have probably done pink instead of purple), but I still like the relative cohesiveness of the look of this book. Endpapers are Crepaldi, i am absolutely shameless about my stash.

I also was very excited because I learnt Affinity Publisher for this book!!! Zero regrets, it looks amazing, i am a convert I will never go back to Microsoft Word goddamn. and ME AND SIDE HEADERS - i love them though the book might have benefited from larger margins. THEY'RE SO SEXY MY GOD.

hehe, i may have also sustained a flesh wound while cutting the board for this book but HEY WE ALL EVENTUALLY HAVE ONE OF THESE THINGS (WHERE WE GOTTA GO TO THE A&E BECAUSE OF A BOOKBINDING MISHAP) BEAUTY IS PAIN Y'ALL.

ULTIMATELY I'M SO GLAD THE BOOK ARRIVED SAFELY TODAY AND I'M SO HAPPY SHE LOVED THE BOOK. when you bind for another bookbinder, it's both stressful and extremely endorphin-releasing because the other bookbinder both appreciates all the design choices you make as well as knows exactly where you might have fucked up.

ultimately, making a book is a small small gift for someone who so generously wrote a novel-length epic for free and shared it with the masses for a love of fandom.

anyway, go read this fic, guys, it's so so good, and SHE JUST WROTE A NEW ONE (IT IS ALSO EXCELLENT and i am savouring it WHILE PONDERING DESIGN CHOICES HEHEHEHEH)

Please check out her AO3 page here.

Other things I've been working on:

FOILED EDGES HAVE BECOME MY PASSION I HAVE NO REGRETS. @duran-binding and I have been excitedly getting everyone into sanding and THE LOVE FOR POWER SANDING AND DOING FOILED EDGES. Marissa has even succeeded with hidden fore-edge painting - ALL HAIL OUR EDGELORD who does marbled edges and hidden fore-edge painting and has so kindly shared all her information with others for absolutely free. ❤️‍🔥

[notwhelmedyet]

an approximately chronological list of things i've fucked up in my current bookbinding project

When merging the individual chapter files into a single pdf I messed up the page numbers and had to go back and redo it

I did that again

I fixed the page numbers but forgot chapter 7 entirely and only caught it halfway through printing. Thankfully fixed it

Realized I fixed all of that without catching an image cutting off part of the text in the colophon. fixed it in the UK edition

Didn't test my inkjet ink for bleed before designing and drawing the entire Eriador map, only to realize that the magenta ink bled horribly. Fixed it by image editing all the red elements to brown.

(there were lots of other map mistakes but we're going to keep Fred Mithrin between us)

Marbling fuckups, which deserves a whole separate category:

Tried marbling outside. As it turns out, wind moves paint when it's floating on top of a pan of water. This makes it difficult to put the paint where you want it.

Alumed the paper, then pressed it in a stack under weights and left it overnight. Turns out the alum deactivates (chemistry something something) if left in an anaerobic environment for a long time and the sheets were ghostly pale

Made the size too thin (there was a wake like I was jet skiing with those combs and the patterns were illegible)

Made the size too thick (so many. fucking bubbles. everywhere)

Air bubbles in all the wrong places RIP

Made my stencil BACKWARDS because I didn't check which arm was injured before marbling

Alumned before applying the stencils (the paper warped everywhere except where the stencil was and then it wasn't flat)

Alumned after applying the stencils (now the paint could bleed under the stencil and it didn't have clean edges)

Used freezer paper for the stencils (this was my ultimate mistake it just doesn't stick enough to prevent bleed. i think. i never fixed this so who knows)

Black paint was haunted. (That's not so much a mistake as an unavoidable reality I didn't realize when planning my marbling)

Back to regular fuckups:

Tested a new endpaper style (hidden linen-joined endpapers) on one of my good marbled sheets rather than on a blank sheet of paper, only to realize the sulphite paper was too weak and would tear. Impossible to remove the linen from the sheet and had to abandon it for one of my sub-par marbled sheets

Glued the cloth hinges for the UK editions on BACKWARDS with PVA. compounded this mistake by trying to carefully remove them with a microspatula rather than living with it. Tore the paper. Attempted to mend it with kozo and warped the paper. Attempted to color it with paste paint to cover it up and tested my color match on plain rather than mended paper, leading it to be obviously the wrong color.

When sewing the US copy of ATWW I pulled the wrong thread while doing a weaver's knot and ripped the first signature out of the book (mended it with kozo tissue)

Trimmed the head of US DR with the pages askew because I forgot to square the book in the press in all 3 dimensions. Trimmed it again to try and correct that, but didn't take enough off so it wasn't flat. Tried to sand it flat and still didn't succeed. Gave up.

Glued and rounded the spine of UK ATWW before trimming the fore edge. Had a panic. Got the trimming setup and done in under half an hour, a new record.

Rounded the spines unevenly (always)

Didn't press UK DR tightly enough while sanding the inside fore edge and some of the pages got hooked in on themselves, necessitating going through with a microspatula and unhooking each page individually, then sanding again.

Over to edge marbling fuckups:

Used too strong of masking tape to tape off the head and tail when dipping the fore edges, which ripped the back side of the endpapers while removing.

Didn't dip US edition fore edges deep enough, leaving blank spaces

Panicked and dipped them a second time, making the pattern muddled

Managed to get bubbles on both the head and tail of the UK editions, because god hates me in particular

Attempted to fix one of the bubbles with paint and accidentally washed off a patch of marbling in the process.

Didn't press the books tight enough (quick release clamps were a mistake

Should have dried off the edges gently with a paper towel before air drying - the water on the edges seeped into the pages, causing both paint bleed and the books to warp out of square

Forgot the paste paper endpages and literally GLUED THE BOOKS SHUT. Had to very carefully pry them open again. 🤦

Aaaand that's as far as I've gotten so far but never fear more mistakes are on the way