#i went to bookbinding school

[scribefindegil]

Thinking again about how many disabled people end up getting shunted into art/craft work because like. You can technically do it. Sometimes. Yeah you make a pittance at best and are almost certainly going to make your physical health worse by pushing yourself to get things done, but what else are you gonna do? You're too sick for anyone to hire you. You're "not sick enough" to qualify for benefits. Just devote every scrap of time and energy you have to a chronically underpaid, low-prestige, incredibly labor-intensive industry. A few people manage to make it work with luck and help and the right skills. Many people don't. Everyone gets pressured to monetize their hobbies, but it's especially insidious if you're disabled because any tiny thing you manage to accomplish to bring yourself joy gets twisted into proof that you should somehow be able to work.

[missmists]

First bookbinding project a success. I think that my cat approves because he would not stay out of my photos. Five months in the making, but I couldn't be more pleased with the results.

I started with @armoredsuperheavy's amazing fanbinding tutorial to create a typeset of each work in @erisenyo's Burning Bright AU published on Ao3. Then had to reread the works in the new format and edit as I went to make sure everything was formatted correctly, (combined word count somewhere around 1.3 million) that took over a month all by itself.

I picked up a copy of Introduction to Bookbinding & Custom Cases by Tom and Cindy Hollander from my local library, to look at some detailed how to images and get multiple perspectives on construction methods. Excellent book, I do recommend.

My hunt for materials included a trip to Detroit with a side stop at Blick to look at decorative papers in person. Blick and the fine people at Hollander’s ended up having everything I needed to make covers. So between my brother kindly 3d printing me a punch cradle, making a DIY sewing frame of my own invention (courtesy of scrap lumber and a trip to the Lowe's hardware department), and three reams of late night printing, I managed to amass all my supplies.

Folding three reams of paper into signatures (the little bundles you sew together) takes about five days if you don't want to lose your mind or your place, and longer if you discover you need to fix things because that definitely happened. Then you get to unfold them to stab holes in them which is as terrifying at first and therapeutic by the end as it sounds.

Next came weeks of sewing books together, a magical process. I learned three new knots, repeatedly stabbed myself (because all forms of creation forcibly demand blood sacrifice) , and felt like I was roleplaying a monastic librarian from the time of Gutenburg. That's 600 years ago, 24ish generations, over 8million ancestors since then (by geometric progression, which excludes the possibility that any of my peasant ancestry is from small towns which is you know likely but I digress) and here I sat sewing pages together in a basement because story is the most sacred of human arts as it binds communities together and shapes perceptions of the self and our brethren, of outsiders allies and enemies, of the world as we know it and as it may come to be. Did I mention sewing books felt magical.

Then came the glue. So much glue. Multiple types of glue. All sticky. all stuck to me. I smeared glue with my fingers like a child.

At last it was time for the covers. Choosing combinations of the decorative papers and bookcloth and making sure I could get enough out of each material for what I needed. Precise cutting so many thanks to the architecture school professors who showed me how to properly cut chipboard. Then measuring and gluing, and more measuring, and more gluing. At last press a little groove by the spine and repeat eleven times.

Then I get to impress all my people with my latest and possibly coolest maker skill unlock, I am a book binder.

Bottom to top in the stack or left to right at the bottom are: These Things Written  These Things Unsaid with Without Consent These Things Known with A Third Chance (or a First) Oh, The Way Your Makeup Stains My Pillowcase That Love You've Been Looking For  All I Need Is To Be Struck (By Your Electric Love) To Open Every Door to Night, To Meet Each Rising Sun (my favorite) Love Is In the Hair (fanart of this one originally lead me to read the series, thanks @ash-and-starlight) Lessons in Proper Asset Management Tangled Up With You  To Be Named, To Be Known (To Be Loved)

[thegingerwrites]

Fanbinding: am i a stranger to you? by @chasingfictions

Summary:

Just then, the last of the blood slipping from that boy into Spike, him and Dru grabbing for each other with their fangs in each other’s mouths, then walking hand in hand up Fifth Avenue, all the way back home, a little prayer croaks out of him, before he realizes enough to grab it back— Please. Please, let it be like this always. - (In which New York City is one of the various loves of Spike's unlife, he can’t stop thinking about the Slayer, and in which, mostly, he just really wants to belong somewhere, if anyone will have him.)

link here

I was inspired by the folks at the Renegade Bookbinding Guild and their Binderary 2024 events to try my hand at binding some of my favorite works of fanfiction. This one is the fifth part of chasingfictions my blood tastes like laughter series and has had a special place in my heart since 2021. I'm from NY and I read this between classes my first semester back at school during the pandemic and Spike's love for the city seemed to perfectly resonated with my own so I wanted to commemorate that in print!

This is the first text block I've ever sewn by hand. At four signatures, this seemed like a perfect starter project. I'm learning that part of designing books is doing it by ✨vibe✨ The gray/white/silver/gold marbled cover said New York to me, sort of a glass and concrete with a bit of shine aesthetic. I went with red end papers because vampires. The typesetting isn't too fancy but I really wanted to find an art deco ornament to separate sections of the fic. It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to decorate the spine. I originally used a gold foil quill to trace the text of the title and author but then went over it with a paint pen recommended in one of the Binderary sessions last month and fell in love with the effect. I can't believe my hand was steady enough to get it that clean 😅

[hms-tardimpala]

Ficbinding: A Poison Tree by @mildredmost

A year and a half ago (ish), I was getting started in bookbinding and one of my first projects was A Poison Tree, a Poldark fic I loved. I was proud of it at the time, but I've learned a lot since then and thought it was time to have another go at it. (long post ahead)

The fic: Poldark, Ross Poldark/George Warleggan, E, 50.6k

What happened between Ross and George at school that began their life-long feud?

The reason I like this fic so much is that it surprised me. I was looking for Ross/George fics and this is one, but not only. George's character is so well-explored here that you can't help but be on his side (while understanding why the things he does offend Ross) and wish him to be happy. I'm not usually into OCs, but the one in this story is so good I loved him as much as the other characters. I went in expecting something specific, the author went another way midway through, and I loved it. The atmosphere is perfect too, it's faithful to the time period and the show/books.

The bind: I kept some ideas from the original bind, such as the color of the cover, headbands and bookmark, and the paper type, but I improved the general quality and added details. I used blue and green because they're the Warleggans' heraldy's colors in the books. The endpaper is a florentine design with golden touches, the kind of luxurious-looking stuff a 1780s nouveau riche would love. I added the Blake poem the story takes its title from at the beginning because it's one of my favorite poems ever.

New things I tried:

This is the first time I combine several elements for a cover. The green strips scared me because MATHS but they turned out good in the end. I'm still not interested in putting titles on my binds, but I think I'll keep exploring decorations of that kind.

Real endpapers. Up until now, I used paper that wasn't made for bookbinding because the thinness of true endpapers scared me, but it holds up perfectly. The book still feels strudy. And look at it, it's so FANCY.

Free vector images to make decorations. There's a wealth of free resources out there!

Huge positives:

I printed, folded, sewed, glued and trimmed this a first time, but wasn't satisfied with the cut. If you've read more than one of these posts, you know I'm desperately wrangling my guillotine into compliance. The second time, I trimmed the texblock before sewing and gluing, which is scary because the signatures are LOOSE, but it worked perfectly. The result is so fucking neat. I was ready to sandpaper the edges but didn't have to.

Look at this snuggy fat boy. This is the thickest book I've made at the A6 format, and it sits very nicely in the hand. The spine is round, the leather is smooth, and it's still very light. A pretty baby.

Details:

The typesetting: I tried many fonts (what's new) before I landed on the right one. It had to have serifs to fit with the period context. I already mentioned the decorations (I looked up georgian-period books to get inspired and discovered they weren't all that decorated, so I made those up). The drop caps are very nice.

The tree: I decided to get the most out of my printer and, after fiddling with the settings a little, got it to print in color with magnificent quality (which you can't see because of the cold light. It's cloudy today, I'm sorry).

Negatives:

The cover boards should have been wider. The pages are very close to sticking out from the edge of the cover. They're not, but it's a tight fit. I think that from now on, I'll use a 5mm "overhang" (is that the word?) instead of a 3mm one like I've learned. I like my spines too round, 3mm are not enough to compensate.

That's it this time. I don't want to brag, but I'm getting good at this (it's been a year and a half jesus).

Characteristics: Fonts: Castellar (title), Colonna MT (author name), Bell MT (text), Apex Lake (drop caps) Materials: blue and green apple leather and endpapers from Schmedt, 80g/m² Clairefontaine ivory paper, pre-made headband and synthetic ribbon.

Feel free to ask me more about materialsand fonts (or whatever), it won’t bother me at all to tell you what I used, but I’m too lazy rn to write it in this post that’s long enough already.

--

Comparison (because why not):

[batmanshole]

i cant tell if this one is easy or not

[annwhiskers]

Art school Portfolio project 1

Please, Go Home

Art school didn't end up happening for me (I'm going to do something completely different and more secure, and keep art and writing for myself for fun), so I thought I’d share my portfolio projects here.

Buckle up, this'll be long as fuck.

This is a story I’d been working on for years, since 2018. I’d rewritten it several times, until in 2023, I got the chance to come up with my own project at design school. Immediately, I knew this was what I wanted. I wanted to make this story into a real book. And I wanted to make it all by hand, cause bookbinding seemed cool to try.

I had to come up with 2 ideas to do.

Translation:

Subject 1

Book. Specifically a novel (written by me). I want to make illustrations of the characters, design the inside (text and design thingies and everything), design the cover. Print and bind it myself. Illustrations of the characters are in it, I’ll try to finish as many as possible, but I probably won’t be able to finish all of them. Then I’ll leave blank pages in and stick the remaining illustration in later. (I did finish them all, so I didn’t need to do this.)

Why? I love books. I read them a lot and I’ve been writing for years. Now I want to make a professional looking book myself. And of course I love to draw, I want to incorporate that too. I’d like to have completely handmade versions of the books I’ve written. I’d like to learn bookbinding.

Subject 2

Graphic novel. I want to learn to tell a story visually. And I want to experiment with color more.

Why? I like to read graphic novels. I want to tell and draw stories, and get better with color.

A mood board of what I wanted, I chose the book.

Translation:

Inside book

Physical book

Character illustrations

Little drawings

Dust jacket

Translation:

Little drawings

Inspiration

Finished product

Why? The main character writes and doodles in a journal. When he’s anxious or his head is full, he doodles a certain type of pattern to calm down. More of the design of the book is based on this. He also sometimes draws little things that he likes.

Translation:

Inside

Fonts

Novels always have a serif font as the standard. Standard book font: Adobe Garamond Pro.

Other than that, I want to use quite a lot of different fonts that resemble handwriting for the chapter titles. The titles are quotes from a character in the chapter, each has their own font as their voice or handwriting. Sometimes, the characters write too, that’s also in their own font.

[A list of fonts.]

Preparations

I made parent-pages for each type of spread that I needed. One with only text, one with an illustration and the start of a chapter, and 2 with only the start of a chapter on either side of the spread. And I made a bunch of paragraph-styles for all the types of text that I needed. I have 2 sections, 1 for the front matter, 1 for the rest.

Translation:

Final product

Here are a few spreads, I won’t show all of them, because that’s 308 of them.

Here I have a spread with an illustration, a basic page with a little drawing in it, and a regular chapter opening where I use one of the other fonts for the title. The titles are quotes, and the font shows who said it.

Translation:

Cover

Research

Adult Fantasy Romance. What’s already out there? (Put a bunch of YA there, but whatever)

I want illustrated, probably with characters. Detailed or silhouette.

Sketches

Colour

Translation:

Final product

Color choice. In the end, this is the illustration I went for. I showed the two bigger color choices from the last page to a friend, she said with the purple one, that the characters nicely sprung out of the image because of the orange. But the green one was more relaxed. I thought the green one fit better with the vibes of the book, but I really like the purple one too. I ended up switching the colours of the text and the characters, so the characters sprung out like the purple one.

Subject. The twigs are around it, because one of the main characters (the right one) often draws them in his journal. They’re also there in the rest of the book, in his journal entries. He’s writing in it on the cover. Left, he’s reading a book, because he does that often, and others in his family do so too. The two shadows are their grandfathers, who also knew each other, which the main two don’t know. Those two have quite a bit of history.

Title. The story is about them meeting each other, and they’ve both been away from home for various reasons. They push each other to go back to their families, that’s why it’s called ‘Please, go home’.

Font. It’s one of the characters fonts, orange left. I wanted to use one of the main characters’ fonts, and I liked this one better.

Translation:

Dust jacket

I put a description on the back, quotes on the front flap, and normally there’s an ‘about the author’ on the back flap, but I didn’t feel like doing that, so I put a short text there to give more context to the book itself.

Sorry about the shitty quality of the next few.

Translation:

Character illustrations

Inspiration

Sketches

I sketched some poses I could use. Other than that, I’m not planning to sketch a lot, I’ve drawn all these characters before and I already have a good idea of what I want them to look like.

Style experiment

I tried something painty first, didn’t like it. After that, I experimented with the background. I didn’t want the colour to go all the way to the edge, because I didn’t want to have to deal with bleed and trimming. In the end, I didn’t give the background any colour, except black and white lines, as you can see in the final result. I liked the effect of only the character having colour.

Translation:

Rune

Earlier drawings

Sketches

Final product

In the book, it’ll be greyscale.

(All the next few have the same text except the characters names, so I won’t translate again. Except if I did add some text somewhere.)

Translation:

And with this, all the illustrations are done. I'm not super happy with all of them, but I did my best to make them all unique and recognizable. And within 4 weeks. I'm happy with it.

Translation:

Physical book

Research

Binding. At first, I thought about doing a standard case-binding, a standard hardcover book. But after watching some tutorials, I realised that's quite complicated and requires supplies that I couldn't easily get. I continued searching and found crisscross-binding or secret Belgian binding. It resembles a standard hardcover book, but you barely have to glue, you need less supplies, and it's easier for beginners. It looks cool, it's sturdy, but also flexible.

Paper and size. A5 size, then I don't have to trim and printing is easy. A4 folded. A4 cream novel paper, I want it to look as professional as I can. It's not the best paper for illustrations, but it does work, I've seen it in other books.

Material. I bought everything I need at an art store in the city, except the paper. I ordered that online.

Practice. As a try-out, I made a small book of printer paper and used watercolour paper. It went well, except that i didn't sew the pages to the spine properly.

Translation:

Final product

Printing

I put my printer at home in my room. First, I tried on standard printer paper if the printer did what I wanted it to do. Which it didn't. It couldn't print double-sided. But with Acrobat, I printed booklets. First only the front, then the back. So I managed to do it.

After successfully printing one booklet on the standard paper(left), I started printing the whole book on the cream paper. Within 1,5 hours, I printed the whole book, 19 booklets. Together with the testing, it took me about 2 hours.

I pressed the pages underneath my cutting mat with two bricks. I left it there for about a day.

Translation:

Cover

I cut the front and back cover out of cardboard, then covered it with linen paper. I drew a twig on it with ink and a brush. Then I poked holes in it for the sewing.

Here, I made the spine 2cm wide, which I thought would be enough. It was not. I'll get back to that. I covered the spine in linen paper, too.

I sewed the cover together, I followed a tutorial on YouTube. Then i glued the end papers on.

Translation:

Binding & Dust jacket

I poked holes (in the booklets) for the sewing, then I started sewing the paper to the cover.

When I'd sewn 6 out of the 19 booklets onto the cover, I was already halfway along the spine and I realised this wasn't going to fit. I undid all the sewing and remade the spine. This time 3cm.

The new spine was still a bit too small, even though I thought I'd exaggerated it a bit. The book doesn't close properly. But I refused to redo everything again, so I just accepted it. It was better after pressing it for a day. I didn't trim the edges, that was very difficult with the pages already bound into the book. I quite like the untrimmed edges.

I folded the dust jacket around it and pressed it, so it'd keep it's shape. And now the book is done. The paper of it smudges very easily. A little bit of dust on it and it won't come off. That's a bit disappointing. (Now a year later, it also isn't lightfast whatsoever. It stood in a dark corner of my bookshelf nowhere near the sun and the spine turned yellow. I guess I now know why covers have protective coatings on them. Which I didn't have the option for.)

Translation:

FINAL final product

Reflection

This project was the most fun thing I did at this school. I've always wanted to do this and it's awesome I can now hold my own book in my hands. The binding was fun to learn, but also a challenge. Not everything went perfectly, like i said earlier. But now I've can learn from those mistakes. I'm quite impressed with myself that I managed to do this in this time. I wasn't sure I could do it. But i did dedicate every moment of free time I had to this.

(I did all of this in 5 weeks. All the teachers doubted me, that it was too much work, and just told me good luck. And I said "Watch me." Autistic hyperfocus activated.)

(The second paragraph isn't important, just a short description of the last discussion I'd had with my teacher about this.)

Awful picture, sorry.

This is the final presentation I had at school for this, and this is where it stops for the school projects side of this. But it continues.

After this, I didn't touch it for a few months. Then I let a friend read it (digitally) and processed her feedback into the book afterwards. Then I published it on Amazon.

This won't be the last time I do this. The whole process is really fun and fulfilling. And owning a real, published book that I wrote, illustrated and designed is awesome.

In case you're interested, click here to buy it.

[dwellordream]

“In the majority of immigrant families and for many working-class families of native-born Americans, the standard middle-class pattern, in which an entire family lived on the income of one man, was completely unachievable. The wages paid to a semi-skilled working man in 1909, for example--between $12 and $15 a week--were simply not enough to sustain a family. In large cities, rent often took between a quarter and a third of the family income and frequently did not include heat or fuel for the stove. Food, purchased daily to avoid spoilage, was relatively expensive. A chicken cost 25 cents, and potatoes were 2 cents a pound. Pennies for the newspaper, nickels for carfare, loaves of bread, and cups of coffee added up fast. Many families had bought their furniture on the installment plan, and many belonged to unions or mutual benefit societies. These payments and dues had to be met monthly.

Working class families adopted a variety of strategies to expand their incomes. In African-American families, where education was prized as a way out of poverty and second-class citizenship, children and teenagers remained in school while their mothers sought work as field hands, domestics, or laundresses. In Northern mill towns, where entire families worked at the textile mill, parents made childcare arrangements with neighbors and relatives for the youngest children so that mothers could work for a share of the family income.

…By far the largest employment sector for young American women, both black and white, was domestic service. In 1900, one-third of all wage-earning women--nearly 2 million of them--worked either as servants in private homes or as waitresses in hotels and restaurants. The great majority of household servants in the North, Midwest, and West were white immigrant women or their daughters, though native-born white women continued to work as domestic servants in country towns and villages. In the south, white middle-class families almost exclusively employed black women as maids, nurses, cooks, and laundresses.

Because the weekly wages of domestic services were comparable to those of factory hands, and room and board were free, domestic service gave immigrant women a chance to save money. Among Irish servants it was common to send money back to relatives in Ireland or to pay ship’s passage for parents and siblings who wanted to immigrate to America. Women from other immigrant groups--Germans, Scandinavians, and Slaves, for example--went into domestic service because they spoke little or no English and were unqualified for many other jobs. For some new arrivals domestic service provided a chance to learn a little English and become familiar with American culture.

…The advent of new machinery and new workforce efficiency techniques, called scientific management, contributed to the “deskilling” of labor, either by eliminating tasks formerly done by hand or by breaking the tasks down into ever-smaller segments. In many factories, for example, no worker completed a whole garment or shoe by himself, and no one needed more than a day’s training to learn the simple, repetitive work. With all these changes in the technology and management of the factory, some men did lose jobs to less-skilled women, who would accept cruelly low wages in order to help their families survive. When working men blamed women for taking their jobs or depressing their wages, they failed to see that it was not the fault of women who needed to work, but the fault of an industrial system organized solely for profit.

Few industrial jobs held any possibility of advancement, and it was not until after World War I that women became job foremen or floor managers to any appreciable extent. Many jobs, like candy making and bookbinding, were subject to seasonal rushes and slack times; women garment makers often found they worked for a 14-hour stretch for three days and then had no work--and no pay--for the rest of the week. Work hours grew shorter, and by 1920, the 54-hour week had become the legal standard in New York and a number of other states.

…For a few years in the 1880s, before it collapsed under its own size and increasing competition from the new American Federation of Labor (AFL), the Knights of Labor had successfully organized hundreds of thousands of skilled and unskilled workers, both men and women, black and white. The AFL, meanwhile, concentrated its energies on organizing unions for skilled male craftsmen. The AFL was not interested in industrial unionism--the organizing of masses of unskilled workers, such as miners or mill workers, by industry rather than by specialized craft. Many Americans, including the AFL leadership, felt that industrial unionism was under the control of revolutionary socialists. They were deeply suspicious of the socialist Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, who were successfully organizing miners and mill workers in the opening years of the 20th century.

The AFL, unlike the Wobblies, ignored African Americans for many years. And, though it did charter a number of women’s local unions between 1890 and 1920, it was heavily biased against women workers. The AFL leadership believed that women should be at home and not in the workplace, and feared that women’s willingness to accept low wages constituted a threat to male jobs and wage levels. The AFL would be very slow to realize that encouraging divisions between men and women workers only retarded the progress of labor unionism as a whole, for women were in the workplace to stay.

..Before 1917, white-collar work was almost exclusively reserved for native-born white women. Immigrants, even second-generation daughters of immigrants who spoke with an accent or had noticeably “foreign” or Jewish names, usually found it impossible to get sales or office jobs. Black women knew that discriminatory hiring practices in both the North and the South made it useless for them even to apply to white-collar office or clerical work in any but black-owned businesses. Increasingly, and mostly in the South, black women were hired to teach black children. By 1910, 22,547 of the nation’s 29,772 black teachers were female.

Similarly, black women entered nursing in growing numbers around 1900, after the founding of a number of black nursing schools in the 1890s. Black nurses worked in the black community and as private nurses; they were denied jobs in white hospitals and in the Army Nurse Corps and the Red Cross. Excluded from membership in the American Nurses Association, they formed their own group in 1908--the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses.

White women who worked in offices occupied an increasing number of specialized positions as typists, stenographers, shipping and receiving clerks, bookkeepers, cashiers, accountants, or office-machine workers. Their jobs had come with the growth of business and industry and technological advances in business machinery. At the same time that the demand for office staff skyrocketed, the spread of public school education, especially high school training, meant that a growing supply of women was available for office work. By 1915, approximately 50 percent of all office workers, and nearly 85 percent of all typists and stenographers, were women.”

- Karen Manners Smith, “Women at Work.” in New Paths to Power: American Women, 1890-1920

[spockandawe]

hello! i came across your wips button and i wonder if youll ever go do them? the transformers ones sound super good!!

That.... is an excellent question and one I'm not super equipped to answer! The boring downer angle is that I've been horribly, immovably blocked on art and writing for a long while now, and it drives me nuts trying to shake that AND i rarely have any luck. I know i can write pretty darn well, and I can do it FAST, there was a hot minute where i successfully held myself to uploading at least one piece of art or writing per day. That pace was never going to last, my art got better and my fics got longer, plus i went from languishing in the falling action of grad school to having an actual job, which was both a less flexible schedule and also more money to explore other hobbies. But that period of my life really drove home how important that rhythm and periodicity is to me, and i haven't been able to recapture that in years.

As it is right now, if i manage to finish anything, it's only going to happen with either a fandom at the VERY very forefront of my mind (svsss or the raksura core au right now), or with an idea too fresh and good and crunchy to resist, independent of fandom (there's a dungeon meshi idea lightly haunting me). Transformers is a remarkably good playground, I love it SO much, but it's been years since I reread any significant part of it, so the ideas aren't flowing. I trust my old ideas, but if the canon isn't fresh, or I'm not actively talking about it, the spark is unlikely to catch. There's an off-chance of me reacting to an idea in some other fic via a medium of transformers smut, but I'm also struggling to read right now too 🥲

But! But!!!! A thing ive noticed and that drives me bananas is that when i move, the shape of my hobbies changes. I vibed really well with writing in NJ and MA, and COMPLETELY lost the ball when i relocated to VA. I cross-stitched in NJ, faded in MA, and lost it in VA. I bookbound like nuts in VA, but i just did a local move, and I'm no longer getting the reaction of 'I'm idle, I should make a book.' I don't know where things will go, first was a rush to unpack my boxes, then was a rush to learn to paint a room, and now my home is full of jumbled furniture and objects and I'm so overwhelmed that all I want to do is lie in bed and level grind in video james.

Teal deer, i can't tell what hobby is going to take center stage now, and it's driving me nuts. But it could be writing! I'm much more confident about my writing than lots of other creative endeavors. I also want to revisit canon for a lot of old fandoms. I think the wip list predates my cnovel phase, but i have two beefy svsss wips, and at least two short ones, and two aus I'd love to flesh out. I have raksura core writing. I have a tf bookbinding project that's been languishing for. 1.5 years. But if i can find my momentum, I'll be diving back into canon. And i really think 5-10k of hard weird emotional smut really is my wheelhouse. I wish so hard i could recapture that energy! This is a response much longer than it needed to be, but just imagine me as the WHY ARE YOU CLOSED meme at my own brain, and much more confused and frustrated than anyone else that I don't write anymore 🤣

[twig-tea]

15 people, 15 questions

Tagged by @my-rose-tinted-glasses, @infinitelyprecious and @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle! Thank you friends 💕

1. are you named after anyone?

Nope! My folks just liked the name they chose for me. They did the thing where they tried to choose a name that they thought would be unique and ended up with one of the most common names in the year, for both me and my brother.

2. when was the last time you cried?

Watching the What Did You Eat Yesterday S2 finale.

3. do you have kids?

Nope! Never wanted any, so I'm happy with the status quo.

4. what sports do you play/have you played?

HA. Here we go. In elementary school I was on a neighbourhood softball team and was terrible; in the end of year tournament, we were two outs and I was at bat and struck out for us to lose, which soured me on this game permanently. I also took neighbourhood tennis lessons and sucked at that too though I really did try. In middle school I was on the basketball team because I was tall and the coach was convinced I could learn hand/eye coordination....she was wrong. I am a decent defense player because height lets me block but I cannot land a foul shot to save my life (or my team's). For fun during lunch l I played [American] football with other enthusiasts. We would play tackle in all weather and on pavement, and we had a great time (I wasn't good but I enjoyed it). By high school I had finally convinced everyone around me I have no hand/eye coordination or physical skill and stopped all sports activities. PHEW. These days I do no sports though I will go to my company slo-pitch games and heckle like heckling's a sport.

5. do you use sarcasm?

Absolutely, but I try not to use it in that mean way in which people try to make someone feel bad about themselves.

6. what’s the first thing you notice about people?

Body language, how they hold themselves and move.

7. what’s your eye color?

Close to slate grey/blue.

8. scary movies or happy endings?

I don't respect this false dichotomy.

9. any talents?

My superpower is the ability to sing along to any song whether or not I've heard it before, and whether or not I know the language. Other than that, I'm pretty good at understanding what people are trying to say and not just what they actually said, which comes in handy in show analysis as well as interpersonal communication and work. And I am good at modifying/adapting recipes to use what I've got/what I like on the fly. Those are my core talents!

10. where were you born?

Toronto, Canada

11. what are your hobbies?

Other than watching All The BL/GL/QL? I am crafty, I like playing with mixed media stuff, lap weaving, and bookmaking/bookbinding. I haven't had the energy for it the last few years, and that's been mildly devastating. But I made holiday cards for the first time in years this year, which was very fun! I also have been known to puzzle, and I garden when I can. And I hike on occasion!

12. do you have any pets?

Nope! I'm allergic to most pets (fur and feathers; I tried keeping fish but was allergic to the algae on the tank, so I gave up). The dog in my avatar is my parents' rescue dog they got after I left home, and I see her when I visit them! She's a "hypoallergenic" breed mix but that's actually meaningless and I'm still allergic lol

13. how tall are you?

180cm; and the kicker is I've been this tall since elementary school so I went from being the tallest person in the room by a LOT to half the boys in the room shooting up to my height or higher, which was a weird experience!

14. favorite subject in school?

Tie between English, Biology, and Chemistry. I loved science and words and analysis in both subjects. I ran the bio and chem clubs in high school!

15. dream job?

University textbook editor, which I did for ~7 years! And it was everything I wanted it to be, but I eventually outgrew it. I love what I do now too (essentially I'm in management), and I know I'm lucky that I've had jobs I love for most of my working life.

I won't tag anyone because I've been absent for days, but if you see this, this is permission to do this tag game, and tag me so I see your post 💕

[oonajaeadira]

Hi friend! Hope you’re having a good night so far!!

For the three things asks: 4, 9, 11 & 14 please and thank you!

I am having a really good night, actually. I mean, aside from all the booms. I really don't love fireworks.

I hope you're having a fun night!

3 topics you’d love to learn more about I'm currently delving into Egyptian mythology and that's been fun and wild. Every time I think one mythology is the weirdest/most complicated thing I've ever heard, another comes around to completely surprise me.

Lucid dreaming. So I very rarely remember my dreams, but when I do, they are often frustrating and I wish I could take control. But there are telltale signs in them and I wish I could get my dream self to recognize them so I could have me a little fun. (Dude, last night I had a dream about vampires on a plane and it was freaky and I did have a moment there where I ALMOST recognized it was a dream. So close!)

Bookmaking and bookbinding. I go off on a spree like once every few years and had a really good teacher this winter show me how to make really simple fold booklets and now I'm on my shit again.

.

3 things you like doing on a rainy day I really like just listening to the rain. It's usually a good day to call my parents because they love comparing their weather to mine, even though we're less than 100 miles apart; it gives them something to talk about other than politics or golf. I'm a homebody anyway so really anything at home is good. But if it's a cold rainy day, I love to cuddle up on my couch with some hot coffee. And if it's a warm rainy day, I like to open the windows a crack and feel the moment the pressure and temp change.

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3 books that you would recommend everyone to read Uprooted by Naiomi Novik The Road by Cormac McCarthy World War Z by Max Brooks (bonus points if you read the last two back to back like I did)

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3 professions that you would like to try I actually went to school initially to be a vet, and I always wonder if I would have liked that.

Personal assistant. I mean definitely to someone like-minded and considerate; I would underline that it was assistant, not servant. I've done a lot of admin assist in my life and done exec assisting for things like planning worldwide meetings and arranging travel and things like that. I have a friend that was once an assistant to a pretty well-known author (and an amazing person) and basically was part of the family, doing the errand running and such. That's what I would like to try. Take the load off so someone can do their creative job and just be a friend.

And, jumping off some things from above, travel guide. I've played the part for a lot of friends and family already and I enjoy it.

.

3 things asks

[crdsnystories]

today was a story of hope, patience and trust. Last weekend, i am loaded with school works due to my preliminary exams plus im also a secretary in our organization. Today, monday supposedly was the submission of accreditation files and my prelim exam for a major subject. Yesterday i am filled with emotions, I've been over my laptop the whole day, busy scanning, editing and filling up all the forms for accreditation. I was planning on finishing them all because today was the deadline but due to some miscommunications and stressful events i didn't finish the files yesterday so i ended up breaking down and crying over my ate's side. Im telling pat that im so stressed and couldn't do this anymore. I was crying and laying down because im so tired and stressed. overwhelmed on what to do next. im scolded by my senior, kasi he was shocked by the total price na nagastos ko sa print. he told me that next before i make a move is to consult him muna. gaslighting myself was the only thing i did as i rest. my family was so eager to push me na magpahinga na muna, not me holding back my tears because i don't want to feel that thing anymore its reminding me of the trauma i had before. every move i make yesterday i feel like im going to end up dropping out again because of anxiety. But yesterday, pat messaged me that he will go here as i messaged him na "ayoko na, im tired. all i want is to cry." he was at his friend's bday but as soon as he came back from candelaria he headed right away here sa house. fast forward today. i woke up vv early para maabutan ko na ako ang kaunahan sa printing shop sa bayan but i ended up waiting for a long period of time & then my professor announced that our exam will be movex tomorrow so yay because wala pa akong review and all. going back, I had to think of another plan because pag iniintay ko sa iisang printing shop matatagalan ako lalo (i need to xerox all the printed files from yesterday para less magastos) so i messaged khaila and asked her if she is not busy kasi magpapasama ako. and yes she's not busy. so im with her we roam around quezon avenue just to look for a book binding shop and printing shop. afterwards, we went to sacre kasi dun daw yung may bookbind. yes we were naligaw kasi nalimutan nung senior ko kung san yung place imagine walking around merchan st. wearing a full white uniform in this heat. then we end up there para mag pa bookbind. dumating na yung asst. secretary namin, she helped us and stuff then we decided to split ways. she went back to school to ask the Office of Student Affairs kung pede tomorrow mag pasa ng accreditation files. thank You Lord they agreed na pede. afterwards khaila & i went home. rest a bit and yay for nanay for treating us mcdo. at 2pm we went back sa printing shop para kunin yung bookbind. All i did was to pray na sana tapos na lahat ng bookbind para madala ko na sa school lahat. thankfully, pagdating namin dun tapos na lahat & na dala ko na sa school. my senior was there & he was light no stress at all.

before going out the house all i felt was anxiety. gusto ko nalang wag tumuloy sa pag aasikaso kasi baka mamaya mapagalitan na naman ako. but no, today was a Jesus encounter. He made everything light and assured me that my stress will be gone away. So He sent me pat to be there because He knows that pat is my safe place, he even told me that he wanted to attend the mass too sadly we didn't make it because of the traffic but we still went there, another one is He sent me khaila & claire for they helped me get through this "pag-aasikaso ng red book day" The Lord helped me today, from waking me up until ending this day. He made sure that everything will be smooth sailing. we had a smooth talk with the osa, we had a smooth conversation with our organization's adviser & we had a smooth settlement with my senior. The Lord truly reminded me that the anxiety of my heart will be replaced with gratefulness of my soul. Bonus that my family will always be my back up. Nanay for the mcdo, ate tet for the gentle pat in the back that its not my fault and tatay for assuring me that everything i need is in that place.

forever grateful for these grace and life. i don't know if im giving back enough to Him. but I know that everything is possible because of Him.

[mostlyinthemorning]

Fifteen Things

Thanks to @lizzie-bennetdarcy for the tag!

Are you named after anyone? Nope. In fact, my mom went out of her way to make sure I wasn't named for anyone in the family.

When was the last time you cried? Last month? I dunno, I'm not a big crier.

Do you have kids? Absolutely not.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? What kind of a question is this?

What's the first thing you notice about people? Their face? Or if they're wearing a really nice coat.

What's your eye color? Blue

Scary movie or happy ending? Happy ending every time.

Any special talents? Too many crafty projects - embroidery, bookbinding, stained glass.

Where were you born? Saskatchewan

What are your hobbies? Reading, writing, making things, gardening

Do you have any pets? Yes, two cats - Houdini and Blondie

What sports do you play/have you played? My sports participation is more in an observational capacity, but I do love to watch hockey.

How tall are you? 5′6"

Favorite subject in school? Social Studies (Is this a Canadian thing? Anyway, it's a combo of geography and history).

Dream job? I kind of have my dream job? But honestly, I'm looking for someone to pay me to write and make things.

Tagging @blackandwhiteandrose @missgeevious @carolrain @stereopticons @weathereyehorizon @likerealpeopledo-on-ao3

[dacergirl369]

HELLO HELLO I WAS TAGGED BY @horse-music HI BESTIE THANK YOU!!!!

are you named after anyone? yeahhhhh my irl first name is named after my mums favourite movie but benny is a diminutive of my surname so im named after...... myself??? slay

when was the last time you cried? uhhhhh maybe last week??? I had a very frustrating time last week and im a real crybaby lmao 

do u have kids? no unless you count my three beautiful cat children :)

do u use sarcasm? YEah i guess so. this question feels like a trap I feel like no matter what answer i say people are going to assume im being sarcastic. I'm STUCK. 

whats the first thing you notice about people? I guess whether they seem nice or not?? approachability???? idk

what's your eye colour? grey blue

scary movies or happy endings? WHY PIT TWO BAD BITCHES AGAINST EACH OTHER

any special skills? not particularly!! I can't really think of any rip

where were you born? yorkshire. white rose for life innit

what are your hobbies? DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS OBVIOUSLY. but also I don't know if i've ever really talked about this on here but im SUPER into bookbinding. largely of fanfics but also notebooks and my original writing etc. i mostly do casebound books since thats what i enjoy making the most BUT i LOVE experimenting with new types of binding as well as binding adjacent crafts (paper marbling, paste papers, box building, etc). bookbinding is highkey the love of my life rn i love CRAFTS. Its fun its cool its easy to get started with and its extremely rewarding to create a pretty good book even first try. cannot recommend it enough. the only downside is that ive started pouring all of my limited money into Bookbinding Supplies and Machines bcs i am. Obsessed. but you don't NEED that shit to do well at it i just like it. :)

do you have any pets? YES i have many beautiful children including three beautiful kitties and two Very Large Dogs (technically they belong to my parents but those r MY KIDS). 

do you or have you played any sports? im not really a sports guy but i played rounders through to the end of secondary and one time when i was in year 5 i think i got a last minute invite to come to a golf tournament bcs someone got sick and they were a person short for the team and i was like “sure, ive never played golf before but i will say yes to literally anything that gets me out of class” and so i went and i won the tournament so i guess you could say im a champion. full disclosure i dont know that any of those kids had ever played golf before that day think everyone was just picked for being vaguely sporty and i got picked for being generally well behaved and also available. plus the category was like “[city] year 5 golf champion” so it was SUPER narrow and not very competitive. lol. i dont really remember what the actual tournament consisted of but im like 75% sure it wasnt actually playing golf. I think it was just like a selection of golf adjacent activities. weird day

how tall are you? I don't know like 5’5? 5’4? something like that

fave subject at school? media studies my beloved <3 i never had more fun engaging academically than i did in gcse media.

dream job? I dont KNOW i like performing i like writing i like creating. probably like a podcaster or stand up or author i just got SHIT TO SAY. or a bookbinder. :)

TAGGING @acasternaut @blueberrybonbons @riverblujay @billhaders @tattoobedobedoo @pawpunkao3 AND ANYONE ELSE WHO WANTS TO. IF I DIDNT TAG YOU IM SOWWY :D

[twisted-tales-told]

Hey,

Okay so for the sleepover time I’m just gonna talk about my day because I literally have no friends and I love oversharing.(I’m sorry if I’m doing this wrong or anything😭) So I tried bookbinding one of my fav fics and it went wrong in every imaginable way (its so ugly. Looking at it makes me wanna rip my hair out.) buttt I didn’t really care because my mum made my fav dessert so yumyum. It’s almost 3am for me and I have school in a few hours but I’m..idk how to explain this. Sleepy and tired but not tired? I hope this makes sense. OHOHOH also we’re reading such a cool book in my English class it’s called “my brothers name is Jessica” and I’m loving it so far (the parents are transphobic and it’s making my blood boil but I’m pretty sure it has a happy ending) . Also tomorrow I get my French test back so wish me luck. I probably did good on it because I love French (fun fact I actually used to hate french but now I love it sm. languages are just so easy and so beautiful.) Today was super boring and while eating spaghetti one of my brackets moved so tomorrow I have to go to my dentist but at least I’ll be able to skip class so yay!! Lastly I just wanna say that I’m very very hungry but am too lazy to make myself food🙁

Okay I think that’s pretty much it!!! How was your day?? Did you do anything special? How are you feeling?? Tell me/us all about it☺️

Hi hi!!

Just so you know my first bookbinding project was actually Trash! Literal garbage could not even open it! Typesetting alone takes so much time I 10/10 recommend go slow with it, be as careful with each step along as you can and try new things. There’s no time limit!

Desert is the best meal and I’m so happy ur mum made your favourite! I need to get back into baking I miss it.

My English teachers didn’t even bother to find us books to read they mostly gave us articles it was very sad my critical reading skills suffered for it so I’m happy some English teachers still care.

I am also hungry and am too lazy to make myself food right now, sadly that does not go away ever in life. My cat is not having that problem and is crying at me for a snack but her feeding time is in 25 minutes so she has to wait.

My day has been so fun actually I did all my fav things. I edited someone’s fic @sequinhaze wywm, I typesetted another one @euphorial-docx OPEV, AND I started reading/watching Twelfth Night (Shakespeare) + I watched The Last Of Us.

Also! I finished Chapter One of the if we were villans au!! I need to have more plot set up before I can start posting cuz I have so many Secret Things in chapter 1 but not even I know what the Secret Things mean yet. Writing is weird like that.

Regulus has a secret, but what secret? Who knows, cuz it isn’t me.

[hms-tardimpala]

Years ago, I went to an elementary school that was legit run by a museum. Like, they would display collections at our school when it wasn't on display at the museum and we learned a lot of weird and random things through hands-on projects. The one that always gets a big reaction is our 1st grade science project had us mummify a duck.

Anyway, one of the things we learned to do was very basic bookbinding, but it was taught to us sort of as a historical, people don't bind books like this anymore, type of thing. I stumbled upon some dead blogs last year showing finished, bound fics and I was so excited to learn that, no, this is still A Thing That People Do

Now, I've been pointed to you as someone active in the craft and your work is lovely. I particularly loved your binding of A Complete Kingdom by absolute legend Komodobits. It was so clean and the colors were lovely and your lighthouse motif was spot-on.

I want to learn bookbinding, too, but I'm not sure where to start. Any advice? How did you get started? What tools or materials do you wish you'd invested more in sooner? What did you wish you'd known before you got started? I would appreciate your insight and perspective.

First of all, thank you so much for reaching out. I apologize for the time it took me to answer you: I was overwhelmed. I didn't know I'd really been noticed. Thank you for your lovely compliments, they filled me with joy <3

I'll try to answer your questions to the best of my ability, even though I still see myself as a beginner (I started in july 2022).

I started by stumbling upon this video. It served as an introduction to some basic bookbinding steps and gestures, and the stitch shown here to sew the spine is still the one I use to this day. It will only show you how to repurpose an existing cover to bind a fic in, however.

Wanting to make the whole book myself, I looked for another way to learn and found this book. And it's so good that I haven't needed to find another source of information since then. At the time I bought it, it was easy to find and not to expensive in my country, but I don't know what its situation is today where you are.

I know others learned through youtube tutorials like Sea Lemon's or DAS bookbinding's, but I didn't go that way, so I don't have recommendations.

What I can recommend is checking out ArmoredSuperHeavy's blog (their pinned post contains a link to the free bookbinding manual they made, which seems to contain the same things I learned from my book). They created the Renegade Bindery discord server. It's a wealth of knowledge and a very welcoming place (I tried it but left because I'm not good at navigating big servers, but that's just me). That's the beating heart of the bookbinding community, in my opinion.

You can get started with very rough tools, if you're not sure you want to invest right away. There are perfectly decent bookbinding kits online that will generally contain a plastic bone folder, an awl, needles and thread, and that's enough to get started. A simple cotton or linen thread waxed by pulling across a candle works great. I bought pieces of pleather made for home decor to start with, and I'm glad I did because you're always gonna make mistakes when you start, and ruining good fabric feels terrible. But now fabric is the thing I invest in the most. I buy my bookbinding cloth from Schmedt (warning: it's expensive, and may not be the most practical for you depending on where you are in the world) and I'm slowly gathering a collection of varied colors.

If you buy good tools and good fabric from the start, don't be disappointed when your first creations don't look as good as the ones you see on tumblr. You'll have to learn and get good in order to use your tools and materials to their full potential.

The great thing about bookbinding is that you learn at least one new thing every book.

I'm thinking about your questions. There's not really something I wish I'd known before I started, I think I elvolved in the most organic way as a bookbinder. As dumb as it sounds, my best advice is: try stuff, and make plenty of mistakes. Mistakes are the most efficient and fastest teachers.

Don't waste money on a small shitty guillotine if you think you're gonna buy a real one in the future (my ream cutter cost 100€, it's very good, I needn't have bothered with a 50€ one before), you're under no obligation to trim your books.

You're under no obligation to buy a Cricut to make your books look like those you see on tumblr, with vinyll titles.

WATCH OUT! SCALPELS AND BOX CUTTERS ARE HUNGRY FOR YOUR FINGERTIPS AND THEY'LL FOOL YOU INTO THINKING YOU'VE DOMESTICATED THEM. NEVER EVER TRUST A BLADE.

I don't quite know what to add. I hope this was at least a little helpful, and not just useless rambling. Thank you againg for your lovely message, and I hope you have lots of fun <3

[fallynleaf]

i don’t really think of my life as particularly unusual or exciting, but my 20′s kinda do sound wild when i lay it all out for someone...

like, i went to grad school for Star Trek fanzines and in the process accidentally became a bookbinder and a papermaker. then a couple years later, i got into professional wrestling and it drove me to attempt to become trilingual and i accidentally became a translator.

i guess i really will follow my special interests to the ends of the earth huh