Aftershocks | knifemartin

Another favorite Rusty Quill Gaming fic of mine--Aftershocks by @knifemartin! I was absolutely blown away by the worldbuilding, the varying relationships and their different forms of love and intimacy, and the clear and vivid visuals throughout. I have been craving Zolf, Wilde, and Sasha living together as a happy little family ever since I finished it, and I think often about the scene where Zolf discovers that Wilde is an angel. The various visuals in the story definitely inspired this bind--in particular, the gold and white of Wilde's former and current wings and the wings themselves.

This is another book that makes use of the new things I learned during Renegade's February binderary event. It also uses double-core endbands, has trimmed (and splattered) edges, and uses a chapter header motif that I've seen floating around in bookbinding spaces occasionally and that I've been wanting to implement in some of my own binds! I was also able to finally make use of the white fibrous paper with gold squares stamped onto it (for the half-title page) and the gold fabric-like paper (for the endpapers), both of which I've had in my paper horde for ages.

And, of course, my favorite part of this bind--the wings on the covers! I found a tutorial online for an angel wing wall decoration, scaled it down, and cut out all the feathers using my Silhouette and a white fabric/paper roll I picked up at a used craft store (I think it's wallpaper, but I'm not quite sure!). Then, I glued all the feathers down to a base before gluing the wings themselves to the covers. I really like the 3D effect I got by not gluing down the tips of the feathers, and I think they feel really nice to the touch! I had a very strong vision for this book, and being able to realize it so cleanly was so so much fun.

Due North | knifemartin

I've been reading a lot of Rusty Quill Gaming fanfiction lately, and @knifemartin's series Due North is one of my favorites and immediately climbed to the top of my to-bind list. I love its explorations of grief, hurt, comfort, and hope, and it really made me love Carter as a character so it will always have a special place in my heart.

This was the first bind that I made after the Rengade server's February bookbinding event, Binderary. I'd attended a ton of workshops and subsequently bought a bunch of new tools and materials, and I got to use all of them and more on this book! Of particular note are the edges, which mark my first time chisel trimming a book and painting the trimmed edges; the endbands, which are my first go at double-core style sewn endbands; and the title page, which includes my first time using vellum in a bind as well as a sample of my first batch of hand-marbled papers. This book is also my first that uses short-grain paper, and I'm delighted at the feel of it and how well it drapes!

Overall, I'm absolutely thrilled with how this book turned out, and I can't wait to finish my own copy and add it to my shelf 💜

Apple Pies and Other Amends by ToEatAPeach

About the bind: ✦ made 30 illustrations for the typeset. Also had the entire typeset printed out and made into a text block before realizing.... I wrote the author's name wrong on every second page (ToEachPeach instead of ToEatAPeach RIP) ✦ I also sanded down the edges of my text block to make it as straight as possible! I don't have a guillotine but maybe it is time to invest into one now ✦ Hardcover design is also illustrated by me, featuring Hermione holding an apple pie. ✦ Slipcase also features a HTV design that wraps around the case! I didn't have 60cm cricut mat so I had to attach two 30cm mats to let my cricut measure it and think I had a long one.

Bookbinding (horror prop) of Shell and Bone by @polymathema, Apr 2024.

This horror fic is uncomfortable to read in some interesting ways. It's an unfinished work, and though it's not necessarily at a cliff-hanger, I thought it would be a neat choice to make the ficbinding look as thought it was a journal left unfinished for sinister reasons. It was a fun experiment to make and then deliberately ruin a book: this has been banged on the corners, had pages torn out, soaked in salt water (and let dry the messy way), and been stained with several colors of ink to make it look nasty but in a way that is unlikely to rub off on the other contents of my bookshelf. The initial book also includes some deliberate minor bookbinding sins, such as putting tape on the book.

Materials: Davey board, Verona rayon bookcloth, archival PVA, laser printed text on printer paper, cotton thread coated with beeswax, scrap printer paper, scrap yarn, paper tape, sharpie, PH Martin's waterproof india ink, Diamine Writer's Blood ink, and Herbin Rouge Grenat ink.

The marvelous series Love, and Other Ineffable Things, by @ineffablepenguin/firenzia. Typesetting these stories into a two volume set took me so long—it’s the longest series I’ve done. I hope the order is close to intended. It’s an absolutely beautiful series of works.

Author copy with artist copy

The strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde

Bound in paper April 2024

fanbinding:  operation tulips (your two lips should kiss)

a couple of years ago i had the absolute honor to work with @carpedzem​ on this masterpiece for the CS Valentine’s Day Role Reversal:

together, we brought operation tulips to life from this magnificent image that already tells a story.  my job was just to narrate it.

after that, i got a prompt from @katie-dub​ and decided to revisit this little corner of perfection, and that got us before the evening’s gone away.  a little sequel, of sorts.  and–while i was doing that–katie worked up this brilliant little prequel for all of us who have a little tinkerhook in our hearts:  distractions (before she was mine).

so now i bring you this, a first experiment in bookbinding:

Keep reading

fanbinding: even to the edge of doom / on what they fall

a while back i was chatting to my beloved @wistfulcynic about her latest OFMD fic and how she was returning to a concept she had loved in a previous fic in the OUAT fandom. so i thought--why not both? i took the opportunity to put this together and managed to send a bit of a care package across the ocean.

the binding sewn boards binding, tete-beche style. a tete-beche is a binding containing two separate works, and one is upside down in relation to the other so that whatever way you flip the book you have the story oriented correctly for reading. as @wistfulcynic would no doubt tell us, "...books bound in the tête-bêche style shown above—a term borrowed from French, meaning “head-to-toe”—have two beginnings, plus two ends that meet in the middle." my first attempt at this technique and i am pretty happy with the result! printed legal quarto size and fits brilliantly in the hand with a good weight.

the black-on-black worked a bit better in my head, to be honest, but equally true is the fact that the photos don't quite do it justice.

the cover classic black bookcloth from colophon. i'm working through the learning curve on my new silhouette portrait that i snagged in the post-christmas sale at michael's. the cover designs are converted embroidery patterns drawn in foil quill. the titles are cut from siser glitter HTV.

i've done a previous binding of on what they fall if that looks familiar. can't ever bind a classic too many times, amirite?

Psychological Warfare of the Malayan Emergency by Herbert A. Friedman (Ret.)

Have you ever been taught a version of history at school that seems weirdly simplistic? And then years later, you find more evidence that shows the whole affair was a giant, complicated mess?

Guess what I learned over the past few months about the Malayan Emergency.

My first bookbinding project is complete!

I'm so happy :D I've bound Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by @mouseonamoose. This is one of my all time favourite fics, written with such love and care. I'm so grateful it exists.

I did the typeset last summer and finally got around to the actual binding. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the amazing community at the @renegadepublishing Discord server. Your enthusiasm, wealth of knowledge, and helpful resources have been so important to this lurker :)

PS: And @mouseonamoose - if you're interested, I've bound a second copy that I can send your way. Feel free to message me about it!

My first ficbind! It’s just for me so I don’t feel bad that the endpapers got scrunched or that I messed up recto-verso printing standards.

pentapus wrote some of my favorite Naruto fanfics that I come back to again and again. The whole cast is well-written and the situations drive pentapus’ fics in wonderful, world-expanding ways that I always want to read for Naruto.

Designing the title page was really fun! This is a story that has a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy details, which are sincerely my favorite part of any worldbuilding.

I got the cover paper from a secondhand art supply store that I adore. The spine paper is cardstock I stole from work. I don’t have access to a printer except through my public library or, if I want to pay, a print shop. Because I wasn’t sure how everything would print up, I went for library printing. This meant I couldn’t print on anything but the standard paper in the machines; I had to handwrite the title. All my fine-tip sharpies were dry, so I ended up breaking out my dip pen.

It doesn’t look professional, by any means, but for a first bind? I’m proud. I learned a lot. I love it.

first bind!

i never posted it before, but it's good to have a marker of where i started 💜

paper was regular copy paper, sewn with embroidery thread, boards scavenged from an old sketchbook and endpapers excruciatingly cut with the sharp corner of a metal ruler and an ultra janky exacto knife, "mull" not shown because it was bright pink sparkly tulle. lol

the bookcloth is homemade from this strangely wrinkly and textured cotton fabric, and the endpapers are a rolled up and glued piece of paper. all held together with mod podge! hand-painted the title with golden acrylic.

i didn't think id ever post this one, but it's nice to look back and see how far ive come, even though im quite embarrassed by the state of it. still, it's the bind that has gotten the most use (and reuse); ive annotated it over and over again from each reread and now its full of tabs. still works as a book, so no matter how janky it is, it has lasted as a functional readable object!

psalm 40:2 by unicornpoe

Here is my bind for @no-name-publishing in a Renegade Mini-Exchange! This is such a wistful and tender story about learning to accept and love yourself, even when you feel unlovable, and I was absolutely ecstatic when I peeped it on his wishlist.

First ficbinding attempt, will update with the finished thing when I case it in tomorrow.

Here’s my crooked, wrinkly firstborn in all its arguable glory. Not pictured: my battle wounds and the glue in my hair. A learning experience if ever there was one!

Thanks to the @renegadepublishing folks for all the inspiration!

Azoth by Zeitgeistic

Very excited and nervous to start sharing my binds online but here is my first post! I've known I wanted to bind Azoth since I first read it ages ago so I'm glad I've finally gotten here. To be clear, this is NOT my first bind, it's actually my tenth.

This bind had a lot of firsts for me.

There are of course mistakes but overall I'm quite proud of this one!

Got a bit of a different bookbinding post today. @renegadeguild got an ask from a new binder saying they were intimidated by everyone's gorgeous binds (me too, actually, some of you guys are scary good), and so they've asked people to share their first binds. And I realized I'd never even taken photos of my first one, so here it is, warts and all:

This is E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops, a public domain scifi short story that you can read for free at the link. The first reason I chose it was that it's an interesting story, and I'd bought a print-on-demand copy a few years previously that was just terrible. Baffling cover choices, basic errors in the typeset (like quotes that face the wrong way), weird size that didn't fit on my shelf; just not a good product. I couldn't do it with more indifference than the PoD people. The second reason was that I was too intimidated by the thought of asking a fic writer if I could bind their story and then producing something with a thousand sloppy beginner mistakes, and then they'd want to see photos and I'd have to show them this and it would have been mortifying, but Forster has been dead since 1970 so I could not disappoint him. It was very freeing. I bound it in 2021 as an experiment, to see if I liked this hobby enough to stick to it. The cover is green cardstock and faux leather scrapbook paper that I bought at... probably Hobby Lobby. I added the title later, as a practice project when I first got my Cricut; for the first two years of its existence it had a blank cover.

There are more photos under the cut!