#cat's paw bindery

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Fanbinding of The Perfect Song by dragonofdispair

The Perfect Song by dragonofdispair

To follow his dreams, Jazz offers his virginity and himself to anyone willing to pay. His buyer, Prowl, has a lot of loneliness and a kink for virgins, but dreaming isn’t something he’s capable of. Yet.

Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Archive Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationship: Jazz/Prowl Characters: Jazz, Prowl, Ricochet, Barricade, First Aid, Sky-Byte

The Perfect Song by dragonofdispair 429 pages, letter-quarto/ 50,061 words

Accompaniment: Companion Pieces to The Perfect Song (Adagio, Coda, Cadenza, and Famous) by dragonofdispair 72 pages, letter-quarto / 4,751 words

The Perfect Song was requested as a bind during our local Renegade Exchange 2024 event. My giftee mentioned they liked quartos and also blue, and so I had the first inklings of a design. My giftee also mentioned they wouldn't mind additional gifts, so I decided to bind the rest of the series as a separate book, mostly because i thought it would look cool and then i would have a reason to make a case too (corral all those books together).

Photos and more discussion under the read-more!

First up is The Perfect Song! I have been wanting to bind a chonky book, and while I didn't reach maximum chonk, The Perfect Song is a respectable size and satisfyingly hefty in the hand. This book is a variation of the bradel binding style, which supports a thicker book well. I ran with the musical theme: the endpapers have musical notations, the text breaks are a treble clef, and I used the written music for Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream as the background image for chapter titles. I chose the font for titles and dropcaps because it reminded me of a musical scale. The blue bookcloth is homemade using a faux-suede fabric: fuzzy texture!

The black and while endbands were meant to invoke a piano keyboard: I'm not quite sure I got there, but they look classy regardless!

Next is the rest of the series (which I called Accompaniment for the purposes of rounding up the series in a second book), and it uses all the same themes. I like the cohesive look, and really, why mess with a good thing? This is a much slimmer book, bound in a different style from The Perfect Song. This is a modified conservation pamphlet bind.

For both books I used HTV to put a treble clef on the cover, and for The Perfect Song I had enough room to title the spine as well.

I wanted to make cases for all three sets of books (one for my giftee, one for the author, and one for myself). I ran with the same theme and materials, so nothing surprising there, but I think the books in their cases look really snazzy!

I'm very satisfied with how these books turned out! And I am thrilled to be able to gift a copy to the author! Sharing fandom is wonderful experience for me, and I hope some fanart let's the author know how much I appreciate that they shared their stories.

Also located on A03 here.

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Finally getting my act together and reblogging this :)

It has been delightful to see this post crossing my dash this week, surprising me every time because I'm not in the reblog chain yet XD. Definitely a pick-me-up everytime it happens!

I was contacted late last year for permission to typeset my silly baby robots story for a fanbinding. I was somewhat aware of fanbinding and have an admiration of the art of bookbinding in general, so I happily gave my blessing. Hey, if someone likes my writing enough to commit an act of craftwork about it, I say full steam ahead. In my opinion it's the highest honor a work of fanfiction can receive.

Fast forward to now. @catspawbindery has gifted me this gorgeous tome.

Y'all.

Sweet shiny Primus is this thing gorgeous.

Just look at the quality and care that went into this. It's so well made and wonderful to hold.

I had (am still having, when spacetime allows) so much fun writing this series, despite/because-of its cracky premise, and seeing it manifest as a physical object is delightfully surreal. I'm going to find a prominent place to display it in the room where I do most of my writing so it can spur me on. Hopefully someday right next to it will be the first hardcover of Scoundrel.

(Don't worry, she is a very gentle pup and no damage occurred.)

Amyda, it's beautiful. Thank you so much. I can't stop grinning.

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Fanbinding of New Paradigm - FFWAD 2024!

New Paradigm by TempestTeapot

Fandom: Transformers - Generation One Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warnings:  No Archive Warnings Apply Category: Gen/Multi Words: 70,616

For the 2023 Renegade Typeset exchange @moonlight1314 gifted me the first story of the New Paradigm series back in December. It is lovely and colorful and includes the author's artwork as well!

However, I have immense fondness for the entire series and wanted all of it in one place. So I typeset the rest of the series and began plotting my first tête-bêche book.

My whole design was sparked from these amazing papers I used for the endpapers. I wanted to reflect on rolly-poly baby robots, and circles/star-bursts are a good way to do that.

From there I was able to find a lovely green fabric with dots and spirals to make bookcloth for the cover. These are my first covers with cutouts. Definitely a lot of work, but I like the effect. Something new in my skillset!

The tête-bêche style allows each typeset to shine on it's own, as each separate typeset still gets to start the book.

I wanted something with the feel of circuity on the cover, and also wanted to bring back the circles and indicate which of the covers to start with. This is my second cover using HTV: it turned out very well, but I am still learning a lot with every attempt!

This was also my first attempt at renaissance chevron endbands, which I like a lot! There was still the irritating task of securing the core to the text block, but that's done up front and then it's just sewing from then on. I really like the look, and maybe next time I'll be brave and choose more high-contrast colors to show of the pattern more.

Thank you @wearmanyhats for this delightful story! I'm so glad you are enjoying this fanart!

Mission Complete: Fan Fiction Writer Appreciated!

For those interested, I’ve also included this fanbinding in the Renegade Publishing Fanbindings collection, located here.

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Fanbinding of Gilded Chain by Sroloc_Elbisivni

Gilded Chain by Sroloc_Elbisivni

The throne of Iacon's Primes is draped in golden chains. The glitter hides how strong they are--and how impossible to escape.

Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationship: Megaton/Optimus Prime Characters: Megatron, Optimus Prime, Soundwave, Ravage Words: 3,710

I typeset Gilded Chain for the 2023 Renegade Tiny Book Bang, way back in August. Another member claimed the typeset and bound me a fabulous tiny book. However, while all of that was going on, I was also struck with a vision of a book in gold chains. It took me a while to puzzle out how to make this happen, but here we are now. This is now the second copy of Gilded Chain I have sitting on my shelf!

Here are some exterior shots. I embedded the eyepins in layers of thin cardboard, so they were sunk down into the covers instead of above/below/beside:

The endbands match up well with the chains despite being thread:

With a name like "Gilded Chain", I had to go ham with gold every place I could fit it in, which also includes the endpapers, the frontispiece, and the interior title:

On the inside I wanted to continue the them of ostentatious luxury, so the dropcaps are very elaborate. And the textbreaks are thematically appropriate chains:

So, this is a tiny book, letter-octavo sized. I have a terrible time telling how big are books in photos, so I'm experimenting with some comparisons:

Obviously the ruler is most accurate, but the shell is aesthetically appealing :)

I'm thrilled to have pulled of this cover! There was a lot of fucking around and finding out. @sroloc--elbisivni has their copy and has graciously allowed me to share with everyone online. Thank you wonderful author! I greatly enjoy this story, hopefully a bit of fanart tells you how much!

Also located on A03 here.

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Tiny Book Bang 2023!

So this year is Renegade Bindery's first Tiny Book Bang. Typesetters formatted typesets to be any size smaller than a quarto, and binders later bound up those books!

I made two typesets for the Bang this year: the Kaer Morhan Bookclub by Jack Ironsides, and Gilded Chain by Sroloc_Elbisivni. I am delighted by both books I received from other binders! I learned so much from seeing the bindings that other folks completed! I felt very connected to our fan community, crafting across fandoms and international borders!

But this post is mostly about the book I bound for the Bang: Toy Soldiers by Copperbadge!

@mourningmountainsbindery made a delightful octavo-sized typeset of this story, "lightly comic-book themed" as described by the typesetter. There are three books because I bound for myself, my typesetter, and I always like to tempt the author with a book if I can. Both mourningmountainsbindery and @copperbadge have received their books, so I am free to share!

I tried to sneak in as many fun things as I could. Here we have some shiny foil on the title page.

The endbands are red/white/blue for Steve and red/gold for Tony.

I was incredibly fortunate that 4th of July was right around the corner when I shopped for materials. I found very appropriate cloth for the bookcloth cover ;) And the endpapers I have had for a very long time (a decade?!), so I was definitely glad to find them a home!

Thank you mourningmountainsbindery for the lovely typeset, thank you copperbadge for a lovely story! And thank you mods for all the hard work you do in the background.

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Fanbinding of Mind Over Matter - FFWAD 2023!

Mind Over Matter by kineticallyanywhere

Fandom: Red vs. Blue Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Category: Gen Relationship: AI Program Epsilon | Leonard Church & Agent Washington Words: 136,261

Mind Over Matter is actually the fic I worked on for the Renegade Exchange in 2022, so I had worked with @kineticallyanywhere while getting the typeset into good shape. Even then I had thoughts about what I would do to bind it: I'm not in the fandom, but it caught my attention and I was puzzling with it. And of course I didn’t have time during the holiday season of 2022 to actually bind the story.

Here are some shots of the interior:

I wanted to reflect Epsilon/Church’s many disparate personalities, but also how they all (and Wash) worked together throughout the story. They are stronger together than apart. And I was wandering the internet (as one does) and found these amazing journals covered in woven ribbon fabric. And so that’s how I wanted to show the different personalities coming together, creating something greater. And more recently I found another video, showing the weaving of the ribbons over some heat’n’bond , which saved my life, because my original plan was to individually glue each ribbon to the cover and weave over top. I would have died!

Due to the nature of the ribbon-fabric, I wasn’t able to use my normal casing method. I used the in-boards-three-piece-bradel method, discussed by DAS here. This may be the sturdiest book I’ve ever made! The spine was a bit tricky, but everything turned out in the end. I look forward to using this method again in the future.

I’m very pleased with how everything turned out! kineticallyanywhere has their copy, so although I’ve very late for my original plan to deliver the book by Fan Fiction Writer’s Appreciation Day (FFWAD) on August 21st, I’ve still succeeded in sharing good fandom feelings with the author. Which is my big payoff in the end regardless :)

For those interested, I’ve also included this fanbinding in the Renegade Publishing Fanbindings collection, located here.

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Fanbinding of Incendiary by lastSaskatchewanPirate

Incendiary by lastSaskatchewanPirate

Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationship: Megaton/Optimus Prime Characters: Megatron, Optimus Prime, Rodimus, First Aid, Ratchet Words: 9,915    

I bound this as part of Renegade Bindery’s Binderary 2023 event! A copy for me and another for the author. Another set of quarto sized books.

This is another short fic I come back to on a regular schedule. It’s sweet, and hot, and agrees with my head-canons ��

Incendiary is a series, containing Flash Point and Blastoff. I really leaned into the flame theme with the origami paper on the cover and the imagery inside.

These are my first books with color images in the text block. Color in the text block takes almost the same number of steps as foil in the text block, and I combined those processes, so it was quite the process! The first page of each chapter has smoke in the background!

Once again, my text block was too wide for the ribbon I have on hand, but I have enjoyed the braiding and tassel making for the bookmarks!

Incendiary has a bit of everything, fluff and smut and laughs. 💖 Thank you  lastSaskatchewanPirate for a delightful story!

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Fanbinding of A Year in Toussaint by Astolat

A Year in Toussaint by Astolat

Geralt had no damn idea what to do with a vineyard when Anna Henrietta gave him Corvo Bianco, but he figured it couldn’t be that bad.

Fandom: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game) Rating: Explicit Archive Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Category: M/M Relationship: Geralt of Rivia/Emhyr var Emreis Words: 30,737

This typeset was created as part of the Renegade Bindery 2022 Typeset Exchange! I love the winery aesthetic, especially the winestain on the title page.

To keep with that theme, I chose merlot colored lokta paper for the cover and traced the suggestion of a wine bottle with a heated quill and heat reactive foil. The label on the wine bottle is text-weight lokta, text printed by a laser printer, and toner reactive foil on top. The title on the spine is more heat reactive foil with the hot quill.

Thank you Ruby for the hard work on this wonderful typeset, and thank you astolat for another wonderful fic and an expansive fanworks permission policy!

@astolat​, if you are interested in a copy, please let me know! It always delights me to gift a book to the author :D

I’ve also included this fanbinding in the Renegade Publishing Fanbindings collection, located here.

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

How to Apply Foil Inside a Text Block

Really, there are probably many ways to apply foil inside a text block, but this is the method I used for A Day in the Life of Dr. Rafael Esquivel, Ph.D., which I show off over here.

Equipment & Materials: -          A printer that uses toner (laser printer) -          Toner reactive foil* (I picked up a bunch of rolls from the local Goodwill, your mileage may vary) -          Something hot and flat!**(I have a Minc machine that I picked up second-hand.)

*Toner reactive foil and heat reactive foil are not the same. Heat reactive foil requires a heat pen or hot quill piece of equipment… or a hot stamp machine, if you have room for that chock of equipment!

** I’ve been told there are a few other ways you can try to do this (I have not tried any of these methods): a regular house-hold iron; a laminator; somehow running everything through your printer again?!

OK, so I had finished typesetting my story. I could have printed the pages out and been done with it, moved on to the next step of the book making process.

Because I wanted to use toner reactive foil inside the text block, I adjusted a copy of the typeset so only the words I wanted to foil were still visible. Some of the text I made white so it wouldn’t print out, and some of the images I had to delete: the trick is to make sure no text moved around. And then I printed that out on my laser printer.

So with only the text I want to foil printed, I placed foil over the text and ran it through the Minc machine. Through trial and error, I discovered if you leave all the text on the page and run it through the Minc machine, was doesn’t get foil gets very shiny regardless. Looks pretty weird! This is why I had to create multiple typesets.

So, having successfully applied the foil, then I ran everything back through the printer to get the rest of the text on the page. This required… a third typeset! Of everything but the to-be-foiled text.

And I had to make sure all the pages went in the printer the right way, otherwise the whole process started over again... How many times that happened is between me and my printer :P

Someone will probably comment with a way easier way to accomplish this, and I would love to learn that way! I love the effect of the foil inside the text block, but the effort will influence me to be judicious in its use in the future. 😉

Hopefully that’s the information folks are looking for. Please let me know if you have questions! ~Amyda

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Binderary 2024

Binderary is once again almost upon us! For the folks at Renegade Bindery, February is a month where we focus on making books, similar to NaNoWriMo for writers and Inktober for artists.

This is my accountability post for Binderary 2024! Below are my preparations, my goals, and new techniques I’m going to try. Check it out under the cut:

My Preparations: - 7 finished typesets, quarto-letter sized. I’m also hoping to get these printed out and folded before February 1. - Lots of research on pamphlet binding! - A little bit of research on box making/cartonnage!

My Goals: - I want to bind each of these typesets in a different style of pamphlet binding. - The 7 typesets are documentation of my conversations with authors I’ve worked with over the past year. I want to archive these before the get lost in the morass of online stuff, because glancing at an author reaction to a book I’ve make is a great pick-me-up! Archiving includes making sure my posts and the author’s stories are in the Wayback Machine at Archive.org. - Someone suggested I made a box to keep these guys in, and I have not tried any box making yet. These should all end up roughly the same height and width, so they should all fit in one box! So one (1) box by the end of Binderary. - If I survive all of that, I have a typeset I received from the Renegade Typeset Exchange 2023 that I should get started on! We’ll consider this a stretch goal.

New Techniques: - I have several pamphlet binding techniques I want to try: 2 section pamphlet with cover, one sewing; stab binding (tortoise shell) with a Z-fold cover; button hole stich; concertina binding; stich pattern on the spine (which I believe is a variation on long stitch); conservation pamphlet for 2 sections and 3 sections. These are from both the Kevin A Smith books on glueless binding and also a couple of DAS videos. - I have not tried cartonnage at all! I do have a fairly simple process laid out in the book by the Hollanders (yes those Hollanders) “Introduction to Bookbinding and Custom Cases”. - If I make it that far, for my exchange typeset I want to try a cover with a cutout!

I will update at the end of February to let you know how it goes!

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

2023 Book Binding Round Up!

Ok, I see folks out here putting up shelfies and round ups of their accomplishments this year, and by golly by gosh imma do it too!

So! I made 15 books this year! That feels like a lot, especially since I started making books last year. Here are the books I bound this year:

In the very bottom/back there, I have my crochet patterns, a single copy for myself at letter size. The half-letter books are A Year in Toussaint and Mind Over Matter, for which a made a copy for myself and another for the author (5 books!). Then come my quarter-letter books A Day in the Life of Dr. Raphael Esquivez and Incendiary, both of which have a sibling homed with the author (9!) And then the little octavo-letter is Toy Soldiers, of which I made three total copies for myself, the typesetter, and the author (12 books 😮). And finally, another octavo-letter which I can't share yet, because although it has reached the author, they have not been able to take a peek at it yet (15! 15 books, mwa ha ha!).

I am so impressed with myself!

Additionally, I typeset another couple of octavo-letter sized books, and other bookbinders from Renegade Bindery bound them for me!

These are The Kaer Morhen Book Club and Gilded Chain! I am so delighted to have these tiny fellows on my shelf.

All together now:

You can find details of the binding of all these books on my book binding blog: catspawbindery

And finally, a shelfie for all the books on my shelf:

An excellent year for book binding all the way around, I can't wait to keep going in 2024!

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Fanbinding of A Day in the Life of Dr. Rafael Esquivel, Ph.D. by White Aster

A Day in the Life of Dr. Rafael Esquivel, Ph.D. by White Aster

Fandom: Transformers: Prime, Transformers - All Media Types Rating: Gen Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: Gen Characters: Soundwave, Rafael “Raf” Esquivel, Ratchet, Bumblebee Words: 30,737

I bound this as part of Renegade Bindery’s Binderary 2023 event! A copy for me and another for the author.

I really enjoy this fic, and come back to read it on a regular basis. It is just heart warming and gives me warm fuzzies. 

These quarto-sized books are bound in homemade bookcloth: I was aiming for rust/decay effect, given how the nanites are dismantling Cybertronians. The silver paper helps here too, as Cybertronians turn gray when they die.

I hope you can see in this photo, but I foiled all of Soundwave’s text in shiny green foil. I am very proud of the effect, and I now have a greater appreciation for special effects inside the the text block!

And I ended up making separate bookmarks, because all of the ribbon I have was too wide for this text block  😅 But I learned some new skills along the way, which is one of the goals ;)

@white-aster Thank you for a delightful fic! I hope you enjoy your copy!

I’ve also included this fanbinding in the Renegade Publishing Fanbindings collection on ao3, located here.

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Binderary 2023

The folks at Renegade Bindery are gearing up for Binderary 2023! Binderary is a month where we focus on making books, similar to NaNoWriMo for writers and Inktober for artists. This year Binderary is taking place in February.

This is my accountability post! I will list my preparations, what I expect to accomplish, and the new techniques I’m going to try.

My Preparations: - two finished typesets, which I've done minimal print testing to make sure everything already ends up on the pages I want - I have materials on hand, ready to be cut to size - research on new techniques I intend to try - I still need to reach out to authors to see if they are interested in a copy 😅

Goals: - bind 4 books! two copies of each typeset, one for me and one for the author - if necessary, finish up the books I’m working on now (text blocks are complete, I need to make covers, but there’s still time left in January!) - If I still have time, I have other typesets that I can work on, but I’m tackling this in Easy Mode (3-4 books for the month), so we’ll see

New Techniques:  - combining color (inkjet) and b/w (laserjet) printing in one text block! - foil over toner inside the text block - foil over toner on the cover (for the title) - quarto sized books! - possibly made end-papers, I need to watch DAS’s video again - flat backed books - making my own bookcloth! which I might make before February, if I’m lucky >.<

My plan is to reblog at the end of Binderary to document how it went... hopefully I can say that I was completely successful! Cross your fingers 😉

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

Fanbinding of The Last by LadyDragon76

The Last by LadyDragon76

As the last hatchling's spark fades within the pod, the last seeker sinks to his knees in anguish. On another planet, the last Prime worries for the fate of his people despite the new peace.

Fandom: Transformers (G1, Bay Movies) Rating: Explicit Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Rape/Non-Con Category: M/M Relationship: Optimus Prime/Starscream Words: 78,670

This is my first completed fanbinding! I made a copy for myself and another for the author. I am so excited to hold it in my hands 😊

I fell in love with this red marbled lokta paper, and since I was halfway there already, I chose blue/white for the endbands, just to go full OP/Starscream colors.

I did not plan far enough ahead to have the same endpapers for both books, but I think both choices worked out well!

I really loved how the typesetting worked out! The title font here is Origin Tech, and I just really enjoyed working with it.

Coincidentally, I managed to get my book to the author just before Fan Fiction Writer Appreciation Day! LadyDragon76 is a prolific author, and I have enjoyed many of their stories! I could not have a fabulous bound book without a fabulous story to put in it 🥰

Many thanks to the folks at @renegadepublishing​, who are generous with their time, inventive with their ideas, and just all around nice folks!

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

There was some discussion on the Renegade discord about seeing more first-try books, so not only the intimidatingly perfect books are shown. Along those lines, I thought I'd discuss some of the issues I had while binding these 5 books.

I think the moral of this story is that everyone makes mistakes, all the time, everywhere, and that another excellent skill to have is improvising ways to hide/improve your book design one things have gone sideways.

I like to work in batches of books: if I make myself a book, I like to ask the author if they want a copy as well. That way my book acts as the first-time through and hopefully I make all my mistakes on my book, and give the author something that looks better!

Photos and more discussion under the read-more!

So, I mentioned that I wanted my black and white endbands to give a reminder about piano keys. In my first attempt I actually tried to space the threads like piano keys (white, white, black, white, black, white, white, etc.). My hope was really cool piano key endbands! My fear was that it would like like it didn't know how to alternate black and white threads.

I was able to vary to width of the threads on the endband, but really my fears were realized. This is the bottom endband of my personal copy, and if i weren't impatient I could have this out on a practice text block!

My next mistake was when I start to to case in. I managed to cover my case with bookcloth before I trimmed the sides down to fit the text block. The cover overhung the textblock by almost a half-inch at the front! This was super upsetting! I stopped and took the time to cool down and do something completely unrelated, so I could clear my mind and think up a solution.

The solution was surgery!

I literally cut off the front edges of the cover to have a more acceptable overhang. And obviously I couldn't leave a raw edge uncovered, so I chose to cover the edges with pretty papers.

I chose toput the red down first so the music paper on the cover didn't bleed into the music paper endpage on the inside of the book.

And then obviously I remembered to trim the cover for the books for my giftee and the author!

My final big mistake was made while assembling the boxes. The first book box I made for Binderary back in February I remember as being very straighforward. So of course I didn't review the instructions as thoroughly as I could have. I ended up trimming the fabric turn-ins in the wrong direction, and so the interior of the box just looked atrocious. I solved this problem with the application of more paper!

You will notice that one of the boxes has a paper border around the open side. Again, this is the box I kept for myself :)

So! Most problems can be solved once you are calm and have time to think. Take a break, talk to your friends, get some ideas, and come back to the project later.

And also remember that perfect is the enemy of done! Little variations show this is a handmade work, and it is precious and satisfying just the way it is. It is still a book!

Maybe this mistake is the opportunity you need to bring in another of your hobbies? Maybe your should crochet a fancy border on your cover, or sculpt a mushroom to make your book 3D, or pour some resin and make a window! Make books!

Fanbinding of The Perfect Song by dragonofdispair

The Perfect Song by dragonofdispair

To follow his dreams, Jazz offers his virginity and himself to anyone willing to pay. His buyer, Prowl, has a lot of loneliness and a kink for virgins, but dreaming isn’t something he’s capable of. Yet.

Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Archive Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationship: Jazz/Prowl Characters: Jazz, Prowl, Ricochet, Barricade, First Aid, Sky-Byte

The Perfect Song by dragonofdispair 429 pages, letter-quarto/ 50,061 words

Accompaniment: Companion Pieces to The Perfect Song (Adagio, Coda, Cadenza, and Famous) by dragonofdispair 72 pages, letter-quarto / 4,751 words

The Perfect Song was requested as a bind during our local Renegade Exchange 2024 event. My giftee mentioned they liked quartos and also blue, and so I had the first inklings of a design. My giftee also mentioned they wouldn't mind additional gifts, so I decided to bind the rest of the series as a separate book, mostly because i thought it would look cool and then i would have a reason to make a case too (corral all those books together).

Photos and more discussion under the read-more!

First up is The Perfect Song! I have been wanting to bind a chonky book, and while I didn't reach maximum chonk, The Perfect Song is a respectable size and satisfyingly hefty in the hand. This book is a variation of the bradel binding style, which supports a thicker book well. I ran with the musical theme: the endpapers have musical notations, the text breaks are a treble clef, and I used the written music for Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream as the background image for chapter titles. I chose the font for titles and dropcaps because it reminded me of a musical scale. The blue bookcloth is homemade using a faux-suede fabric: fuzzy texture!

The black and while endbands were meant to invoke a piano keyboard: I'm not quite sure I got there, but they look classy regardless!

Next is the rest of the series (which I called Accompaniment for the purposes of rounding up the series in a second book), and it uses all the same themes. I like the cohesive look, and really, why mess with a good thing? This is a much slimmer book, bound in a different style from The Perfect Song. This is a modified conservation pamphlet bind.

For both books I used HTV to put a treble clef on the cover, and for The Perfect Song I had enough room to title the spine as well.

I wanted to make cases for all three sets of books (one for my giftee, one for the author, and one for myself). I ran with the same theme and materials, so nothing surprising there, but I think the books in their cases look really snazzy!

I'm very satisfied with how these books turned out! And I am thrilled to be able to gift a copy to the author! Sharing fandom is wonderful experience for me, and I hope some fanart let's the author know how much I appreciate that they shared their stories.

Also located on A03 here.

[overlyenthusiasticfictionreader]

The end of Binderary is almost upon us! Here is my accounting!

I managed to bind all 7 typesets and made a slip case! I'm very impressed with myself 😎 Photos behind the "read more".

2 section pamphlet with cover, one sewing:

You can see where the cover-cardstock is folded in the center, and each signature sits in a valley. The signature and cover are all punched at the same time and sewn together, so there's no corresponding fold to deal with on the outside.

Stab binding (tortoise shell), with a z-fold cover:

The sewing pattern for tortoise shell was surprisingly easy, and stabbing was not a big deal with only 8 pages to get through. I did not leave enough room in the inside margin to account for this binding style though, some bits are a struggle to see.

Buttonhole stich:

Definitely an art binding, rather than something that would hold up to wear and tear. It does lie nice a flat when opened, and you can almost flip through it like a more traditional book.

Concertina binding:

Surprisingly difficult to get all the spine folds folded evenly! I even measured! Because of the folds, it ends up being much wider than many of the other pamphlets.

X pattern on the spine:

Pretty fun! I am very intrigued to try more long-stitch projects. This would work even better with thick signatures.

Conservation pamphlets:

The sad story here is that I made the 2 section conservation pamphlet, fully expecting to move on to the 3 section binding, when I realized that I used two of the sections from my three section typeset… so there are actually two of the 2 section conservation pamphlets, one of which has a third signature tipped on in the back 😅

I really like the effect with the endpaper around the signatures and then a matching pastedown on the cover. It looks a little fancy! I'm keeping it in mind for later!

And finally, the slip case:

Much easier than I thought it would be!

All together now:

I did make headway on some bonus projects, but nothing so far as casing in like I was hoping at the beginning of the month. Good thing there's lots of time left in the year!

Binderary 2024

Binderary is once again almost upon us! For the folks at Renegade Bindery, February is a month where we focus on making books, similar to NaNoWriMo for writers and Inktober for artists.

This is my accountability post for Binderary 2024! Below are my preparations, my goals, and new techniques I’m going to try. Check it out under the cut:

My Preparations: - 7 finished typesets, quarto-letter sized. I’m also hoping to get these printed out and folded before February 1. - Lots of research on pamphlet binding! - A little bit of research on box making/cartonnage!

My Goals: - I want to bind each of these typesets in a different style of pamphlet binding. - The 7 typesets are documentation of my conversations with authors I’ve worked with over the past year. I want to archive these before the get lost in the morass of online stuff, because glancing at an author reaction to a book I’ve make is a great pick-me-up! Archiving includes making sure my posts and the author’s stories are in the Wayback Machine at Archive.org. - Someone suggested I made a box to keep these guys in, and I have not tried any box making yet. These should all end up roughly the same height and width, so they should all fit in one box! So one (1) box by the end of Binderary. - If I survive all of that, I have a typeset I received from the Renegade Typeset Exchange 2023 that I should get started on! We’ll consider this a stretch goal.

New Techniques: - I have several pamphlet binding techniques I want to try: 2 section pamphlet with cover, one sewing; stab binding (tortoise shell) with a Z-fold cover; button hole stich; concertina binding; stich pattern on the spine (which I believe is a variation on long stitch); conservation pamphlet for 2 sections and 3 sections. These are from both the Kevin A Smith books on glueless binding and also a couple of DAS videos. - I have not tried cartonnage at all! I do have a fairly simple process laid out in the book by the Hollanders (yes those Hollanders) “Introduction to Bookbinding and Custom Cases”. - If I make it that far, for my exchange typeset I want to try a cover with a cutout!

I will update at the end of February to let you know how it goes!