serpentsnestpress

[serpentsnestpress]

Mine has a soundtrack!

There’s something cosmically beautiful about bookbinding fanfiction. Not the bookbinding of fanfiction for monetary gain (which is undoubtedly morally wrong) but rather bookbinding as a gift for someone you love. Or simply bookbinding for the sake of having the story in a tangible form. After all, doesn’t it deserve a place on your bookshelf, too?

But that isn’t the beautiful part. It is this: the melding of something new with something as old as language itself. Fanfiction (at least compared with bookbinding) is a strikingly new phenomenon. Modern fanfiction has only been around for a few generations. Bookbinding, on the other hand? It can be traced back to 2nd century India. It’s a dying art — one that’s been reborn in order to immortalize freely written words.

Even better: the scribes in India who first invented the process of bookbinding used it to create religious texts. In a way, aren’t we doing the same? Fanfiction isn’t a religion, of course, but if you love a story enough to bind it, isn’t that a form of reverence in itself? Isn’t it holy?

Yes. You make it so. The needle and the thread, the newly creased paper, the hardly dried ink … your fingers consecrate it. And as you slip the book onto the shelf, you make it a temple.

And isn’t that just lovely?

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My version of the wallpaper from The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I took some liberties, but I tried to get both aspects of the pattern described in the book:

At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be.

I didn’t realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind,—that dim sub-pattern,—but now I am quite sure it is a woman...

It is always the same shape, only very numerous.

And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern.

...

And... yeah I do realise it looks sort of kinky.

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I IMPLORE you, please stop it with this kind of binding on books! As a reader I hate these, and as a bookbinder I hate these!!

The name for this nonsense is a Swiss binding, btw.

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Atlantic Salmon Population Data in New England Rivers

The book is a salmon parchment-bound collection of data tables regarding salmon populations and management in New England rivers. Sewn onto the cover with fishing line are pieces of salmon parchment dyed in onion skins and stamped with the names of the data tables used. The edges are decorated in graphite, which adds to the shiny fishiness of the design. The endsheets are handmade paper with bits of plant material, which I thought evoked the feeling of standing in a river.

All of the salmon parchment used was made by me, the binder, out of skins procured from a local sushi shop.

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Fanfic Bind: Kinda think that I might be his type by @kiwiana-writes / I really hope I can get him alone by @clottedcreamfudge

I’ve been wanting to try printing a cover design onto bookcloth for ages, and I’ve always wanted to try one of these flippy books (I don’t know the proper term for it lol) for ages, so why not combine two experiments into one?

Originally I planned to print the entire design directly onto the bookcloth, but then I remembered I had this gorgeous holographic HTV in my stash, so in the end I only printed the watercolour splash that stretches the whole way across the cover, and then went in and added the vinyl lettering afterwards.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so paranoid checking that I was glueing things in the right order/direction/etc but by SOME miracle I did not entirely fuck it up! And of course, the action shot:

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Codex Rotundus “266 almost perfectly circular pages of parchment have been bound together to build a block of 3cm height with a diameter of only 9cm.”

The initials of the metal clasps point us to Adolph of Cleves, Lord of Ravenstein (1425 - 1492) as the owner.

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Hey tumblr we need to have a talk about something I noticed.

Specifically going by tags attached to images I’ve blogged or reblogged, there seems to be a misconception that marginalia means “any quirky medieval art”.

It’s not.

Marginalia is anything in the margins of a text.

The ones that will get posted on tumblr will more often than not be quirky drawings, but they also include notes, annotations, scribbles, and whatever else. The quirky drawings just happen to get a lot of press on here because, well. They’re quirky drawings.

For instance, see this image here of a platanista (river dolphin) chomping down on an elephant’s trunk?

This is not marginalia! This is a full-fledged illustration. It’s within the text (Liber natura rerum, Thomas de Cantimpré, Librairie de Valenciennes Ms 0320). It illustrates the entry on Platanista.

This is what it looks like in context.

But you know what are marginalia? Let me circle them for convenience.

Know the difference. It won’t save your life but it will make you more popular at a medievalist conference.

[serpentsnestpress]

Book Makeover: Casey McQuiston’s new adult novels

Remember when I shared the re-covers I’d done of RWRB, OLS, and The Pairing? Remember when I said next step was a box set case?

…yes, well. I wanted to learn something new and cool and sexy, and that sure is what I’ve fucking done.

This is called a peller case and it’s safe to say I’m fucking obsessed with it. I had an absolute blast figuring out how to put this thing together and I’m beyond stoked with how it came out! I am literally never going to be able to be cool and normal about any series of books that I love ever again, now that I know I can do THIS to it.

(When I first did my re-covers I wasn’t planning to put them all in a box set; if I’d known I was going to do that, I’d have actually made all the books the same damn size 😂)

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he did it again

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Recursion by Tessa Crowley is one of my favorite Harry Potter time travel fics. A bookbinding friend read it on my rec, and talking about it sent me down a rabbit hole of how I wanted to bind it… and today I woke as if from a daze and this was in my hands.

I bound the book in goat leather from Siegel, and decorated with foil.

I was lucky enough to have made some French curl marbles papers that echoed the fractal curls that I used on the typeset, and that are thematically connected to the story.

Endbands are Trebizond silk, and the edges are speckled with black and copper acrylic paint.

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What is a typeset? Basically, a printable version of a text for bookbinding/reading/whathaveyou. Soooo, currently I have twelve free typesets of public domain works available! 🎊 [Edit: As of 5/27, up to 14!] Twelve was a soft goal for myself (though I have no intention of stopping just yet), and I've had so much fun making these and sharing them all! Here are each of the interior title pages lined up together, from top left to bottom right in order of when I made them. Anyone have a favorite so far? I enjoyed making all of them, though the Jekyll and Hyde one is a particular source of pride. All the files for these books are available in the google drive: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1S2wl_PuxCupofnDpqGuk7VjMHYFMWC6g Everything is sized for letter folio, except for Jekyll and Hyde and The Call of Cthulhu, which are sized for letter quatro. Most of the art/images are from canva or rawpixel. All of these typesets are free for your personal use, but please like/reblog if you can!

And a big thank you to everyone who has stopped by this blog, dropped a like/reblog/ or even a follow. It is greatly appreciated! ❤️ Guys I'm just so happy to have an even dozen in my folder. Twelve is a nice number. (The alternates kind of throw me off though...😆)

[serpentsnestpress]

Haven't quite gotten around to finishing any bindings recently (new house isn't the most conducive to spontaneous crafting... yet) but I did take some time this weekend to test out supplies and methods for suminagashi (Japanese paper marbling) since I'm going to be teaching it a few times this summer.

Bit of trial and error since I haven't used these inks before, but I ended up making some nice ones that I'll probably use for small Lokius fic binds.

[serpentsnestpress]

Haven't gotten to bind anything new recently (new house is not conducive to spontaneous crafting... yet) but this weekend I experimented with some suminagashi (Japanese paper marbling) since I'll be teaching it a few times this summer.

A bit of trial and error with these new inks, but I got some nice patterns, and the last few I pulled will make nice endpapers for some Lokius quartos or octavos.

This weekend I think I'll try out some more Western style marbling, since I made plenty of carrageenan and don't want it to go to waste.

[serpentsnestpress]

WIP Wednesday!!!🧡💚

@kcscribbler tagged me this week, so I thought it’d be best to finally share the finished fanfic book I binded for her!😁 KC’s fic is called “The Storyteller Saga” and it the best fanfic I have ever read! Thank you KC for writing this masterpiece😊

Please give it a read on ao3 and continue to give it the love it deserves!💚🧡