Nerys

In WWI, English soldiers wrapped their pants and boots with "puttees", and the spines mimic that look. Rather than actually wrapping, or cutting the spine cloth into pieces (which I worried would fray over time, especially with the opening and closing of reading), I pleated it and sewed it to the cover cloth (which is light canvas-y green but otherwise rather plain, so I'm not including photos here). The titling is flat gold heat transfer vinyl.

The bookmark charms relate to the story, of course.

Halo Effect - I felt that Thomas was defined by his status as a footman and this sets up his massive character change throughout the series, so the first bookmark charm is a footman's button, though not a Downton-specific one.

Soldier's Heart, vol. I - This fountain pen nib is from the early twentieth century. I found in the first volume that Thomas's social network, and communication both to and from define this part of the work.

Soldier's Heart, vol. II - My dad collects WWI memorabilia, including bullets (it's in this volume that Thomas is shot). He cut a bullet down for me to use for this binding. This particular bullet is English, rather than from any of the opposing nations, since he doesn't collect those (and I was rather lucky he had even an English one) but tbh I don't have the slightest idea what the difference is.

Soldier's Heart, vol. III - Y'all this is a genuine RAMC WWI coat button. I couldn't not use it. Wholly unmodified, to be clear, so if the book ever needs rebound or anything changes, it can be removed and reused as necessary. I chose this volume for the button because I felt Thomas really come into his own as a member of the RAMC, away from the war - and because I wanted to use the bullet for the last one, and this is the only volume this button would fit on, other than the last, but that's a whole other deal.

Soldier's Heart, vol. IV - Thomas, whose father was a clockmaker, becomes a chauffeur at the end of Soldier's Heart. My first idea was to use some sort of gear that resembled a car part as a charm. I come from a long line of magpies/dragons/Gollum-like creatures, and my grandfather had, in his garage, an alarm clock that belonged to my great-great-grandfather, gathering dust, because my grandpa had been meaning to fix it and just hadn't gotten around to it yet (he'd been saying this since the mid-seventies, at least - my aunt wanted to use it, since it would have matched her quilt). Anyway, we all gathered around the dinner table to take this clock apart, which turned out to be a rather violent act involving pliers, several screwdrivers, an orbital sander, a drill press, and a hammer. I got a few gears out of the deal, and my cousin (a mechanic) selected the one that looked the most like a car part, scaled down. So. Double connection.

It's a bit difficult to tell in the photo, but the speckled edges each have two different colors, and there's, again, a reason for each choice! Each color represents something specific:

Blue - clear skies/relative calm Green - naivety/he's got things to learn Brown - the muck of war Red - blood (Thomas's and others')

Halo Effect: Green and blue Soldier's Heart, vol. I - green and brown Soldier's Heart, vol. II - brown and red Soldier's Heart, vol. III - green and red Soldier's Heart, vol. IV - red and blue

The speckling is also more intense in the middle three books.

My signature throw, as well as a close-up of the hand-sewn endbands (each volume's endbands match the speckled edges of that particular book) and a bit better look at the RAMC button, though a bit blurry.

And next to it, my metadata page and the gratitude from Halo Effect. I'm very much enjoying this metadata layout, and here's as good a place as any to give some general typesetting info:

I used IM Fell Great Primer for the body text, 11pt, 15pt leading.

Next up, the details in the letters--each character has their own handwriting, and a few are showcased here:

Syl drew a face in the margins of one of the letters with Theo, and I mimicked it for the binding. (Yes I was in fact crying as I did it)

Don't be afraid to ask if you'd like to know the names of any of the fonts - all from Google Fonts, since I do my typesetting in GDocs. I love the first one, in particular (Joey's) because I so rarely use it. I'm very happy with how they all turned out, they feel like they match the personalities well, in my opinion, though I should have made a couple a touch bigger.

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I think that's all of my photos! I'm so so proud of how this binding turned out. It had quite a long turn-around - it's not unusual for me to have less than two weeks between reading a fic for the first time and having a bound copy on my shelf, and I read this fic for the first time over the course of nine days all the way back in March. (Which. okay. Not that long actually.)

1 copy on my NAS (HDD)

For example, for anything important, I try to keep at least:

1 copy on my main drive on my PC (SSD)