#binderary2025

[neptunesenceladus]

moment of appreciation for the humble french link stitch

[merlinmausi]

Behold, it's my first self-standing lectern book!

I've wanted to bind the @mxtxfoodzine into a hardcover book ever since I first discovered them in November, and this binderary I finally got around to it 🎉

I figured a lectern case would be perfect for a recipe book, plus I'd been wanting to try it for a while anyways! There's definitely some glue spots and wonky corners, but for a first try I'm very happy with it :)

Also a huge thanks to @spockandawe 's spreadsheet and all the people who wrote down their findings in the @renegadeguild 's discord server, I'd never have figured this out without y'all!

[veryoddbooks]

Decided that I was going to paint edges on some of my books and it turned out spectacularly!

Credit to SaraMalvaDesigns on Etsy for the stencil .svg files so I could cut them out with my cricut

[roseserpentpress]

Part two of mini GF books for earrings; the book of bill! (journal 3 here). Certainly a more frustrating endeavor; originally attempted to get the clasp work for a magnet, and then had to trouble shoot as it didn't work, and ended up on inserting a wire, which does work. I also painstaking painted the spine title (magnifying glasses my beloved), and cut out the bill corner clasps from one of those tin casserole dishes. The corner clasps which was my least favourite part because trying to make MANY tiny copies with a less malleable material annoyed the fuck out of me. However, I feel that's very much in the spirit for Bill's book... Also if you're like wow the blood for the end papers/blood discolouration on the covers look almost too realistic, don't worry about it. Nothing to worry about here at all. Nope. Nada.

WIP photos below the cut.

[cmdonovann]

binderary roundup! heres all the books i finished in february (minus one that i already sent to someone lol). so that's... 47! my god! i am taking a break forever now. goodbye X'D

[wagtailcrafts]

Bind #4 - Switch by Ceres_Libera on AO3

What do you mean I finished binderary project #4 before bindery project #2 & #3

This is not only my favourite ever fic, but my favourite ever book/story/wherever. I've come back to it so many times over the years and every time I absolutely adore it.

Tiny text is tiny because I wanted to make a text block that fit through my guillotine.

This was originally meant to be my "over the top/impractical cover design with rhinestones, but the more I thought about it the more I wanted something that wouldn't get damaged with use, and I didn't want to buy rhinestone application equipment for one project. I might still try it in the future though.

Chameleon vinyl is fun, edge painting with alcohol based metallic paint was a mistake but I was too impatient to go out and buy something non-alchohol based when this was already on my shelf. It's a little messy in places but not bad for a first attempt! I really want to learn proper edge gilding at some point.

[copticcowgirl]

California Renegade meet-up

If ever you're given the chance to meet fellow bookbinders in person, do it. Don't hesitate. The experience of sitting amid a group of individuals who are as wholly obsessed about a hobby as you are was, frankly, fucking awesome.

I'm still floating on a happy cloud of endorphins from this weekend's @renegadeguild Cali server meet-up. It was a small melting pot of fandoms and ships, age ranges and skill levels, and an established ethos about sharing knowledge without reserve or judgment. 

Even with the (very) early morning alarm, a long drive, and nerves about meeting everyone for the first time, it was the best experience. I learned how to marble paper and book edges. I tried my hand at paste papers. I held other binders' books (!!!!) and was properly gobsmacked by their skill, listening as they openly shared how they achieved an edge, an endband, a leather cover, a difficult technique. 

At one point, when the day was winding down and just a few of us were left standing inside @duran-binding's kitchen, a passionate discussion ensued about the history and origins of a fandom I'd never heard of. And in that moment, my mind took a snapshot from above: the five of us animatedly discussing fanfiction and how our favorite fandoms could potentially intersect. It left me feeling intensely grateful for being invited into this community of fanfiction binders.

So yeah. 10/10 recommend. 

[missmists]

All text blocked and ready to party!

Can’t wait to start casing. Boards are prepped so now it’s just the aesthetic parts with 12 days left in Binderary 2025.

[heliotropepajamas-books]

Bookbinding: Charlottesville - a Fictional Account of a Nuclear Attack by Jan Randall

Charlottesville: A Fictional Account

Date Completed: 2/4/2025

Size: Octavo.  9,401 words, 99 pages.

Copies: 1

Binderary 2025: Book 2

This is a public domain piece of speculative fiction commissioned by the US government in the late 70s asking the question of what would happen in a small city if a nuclear bomb took out DC and many other major US cities.  I have no idea why they chose Charlottesville (maybe because it was close enough to DC that many of the target audience in Washington would have visited?).

I went with yellow and black on the cover to conjure up the old fallout shelter signs on public buildings, and the image on the cover page is the local university’s logo from the time period.  They used it up through the 90s but it was surprisingly hard to find online.  Thank goodness for the library’s online image collection.

Now with link up top! Or read the whole report this story was a part of on the Internet Archive

[kulapti]

Bookbinding of Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu, Jan/Feb 2025.

Handmade custom copy of Carmilla using my typeset from the Renegade 2024 Tiny Books Bang! I made my own illustrations for this typeset, which was super fun, and you can find those in a separate post on my blog. Each of the four parts has a section illustration and different decorative margins, two of which you can see in the photos here. I used several pieces of butterfly imagery to reference Carmilla's line about girls being like caterpillars. There are several hidden critters in the margin illustrations. The title page is probably my favorite.

I was weird enough in the chat to convince a friend to read this novella and they liked it a lot, so I bound this copy for them! This tiny book uses hooked endpapers, a historic style I have been trying to master, and this one turned out quite well. This style involves being able to see into the hinge of the book, and the endpapers are decorative, rather than structural. If you want to see the difference, check out a mass produced book with decorative paper in the front: there's a single folded sheet of paper on each end of the book that glues the textblock (stack of pages) to each cover. In my book here, that paper is not a single piece but instead two pieces, and the textblock is held on to the covers by its spine instead. I finally remembered to put in an oxford hollow, which allows the cover to flex properly instead of being glued directly to the spine.

[three--rings]

Okay I have my first new Bind of this Binderary. (I did a new dnd notebook and an author copy of a previous bind so far)

It's To Fix Your Twisted Reflection by @dgcakes, my favorite 3zun fix-it longfic.

I was super lucky to be matched with @gargoyleandgremlinpress in the annual @renegadeguild typeset exchange, and they took on three super long fics and gave me beautiful typesets of them.

For the case I borrowed the font and broken mirror graphic from the typeset and made it in reflective foil htv. And i added a frame around the mirror.

The spine is covered in linen bookcloth from Hollanders, the paper on the boards is some I bought at Austin Book Arts Center. Unfortunately it's a bit fragile and has already lost a couple spots of it's finish. I might make a vellum dustjacket to protect it.

I also cased this in all wonky and that's a huge bummer. IDK I really like the look of this one, but it wasn't the best execution.

[neptunesenceladus]

binderary 2025 round up:

1/3 binds complete

2 new skills learnt

printer conquered

and 3 new fandoms joined

The bind I managed to complete was of if not by faith, then by the sword by @sauntering-down. the beautiful beautiful typeset was gifted to me by c_art for the 2024 Renegade Typeset Exchange.

I love the grey-scale aesthetic of the typeset and tried to continue that with a black cover and grey endpapers. I did try and have a lightsabre design on the cover but didn't quite space the sections out enough for it to look coherent. The font used on the cover and spine is Aurebesh Calligraphy to fit the aesthetics of the title of the fic. A gold/orange bookmark ribbon to match Cal's lightsabre in my jfo game and little feather charm like the feathers of the Shyyyo bird.

This bind was my first time doing a three piece bradel bind and i didn't have any of my past binds to reference at the time so the boards are cut too large. There are numerous more mistakes and imperfections, but I love it anyway. Life got in the way of completing all my goals this binderary but i still feel it was a success simply because i did some bookbinding.

[tinwhiskerpress]

Binderary 2025

Every year Binderary is a February event hosted by the Renegade Bindery Discord, with participants sharing expertise in presentations and challenging themselves. My goal this year was 9 books, which is fewer than I've done in previous years but more complex and definitely larger. I completed my nine, plus one more that was almost finished in February but not quite.

2 volumes of Viridian (largest and most successful rounded books I've made to date)

2 copies of The Beast With the Beautiful Face (fulfillment of a fandom challenge from 2023)

The Pines (gift for a family member)

The Aerial Corps (by me)

Impossible Things (by me)

Flight (by me, one of my typeset gifts from the exchange this year)

Hired Help (by me)

[veryoddbooks]

Really happy with this D&D journal! It’s going in the press now, not pictured the black painted edges that really finish it off!

[roseserpentpress]

Belatedly finished Christmas gift for my father: a dos-à-dos binding of the communist manifesto, German on one side and English on the other. (Finished it a few days ago, but metaphorically that's in time for binderary, no?)

The spine is self-made salmon skin leather; skinned, cleaned, fleshed and tanned with oak galls, then dyed with the natural red dye called lac. I ended up screwing up a few things with the oak gall tanning, making some of the dye uptake a bit patchy, plus the skins had lived in the freezer not folded properly and a bit longer before tanning then I hoped, but it ended up okay and functional nevertheless. I was very excited to incorporate it into the binding (also with another of the red salmon skins I made a wallet out of, for myself).

The dos-à-dos binding style was really fun, and I intend to another, also with fish skin leather!

[cmdonovann]

woe. goth a study in scarlet be upon ye

i actually originally typeset & bound a first copy of this as a christmas gift, but decided i wanted a copy myself, so. here is my second copy. for my bookshelf :3c

also this typeset is available as a pdf in my folder of public domain typesets, if you wanna use it to make a book too :3