#binderary

Whether you are new to the world of bookbinding, or an aged veteran, join us for a month of binding fun! This event is all about community and learning, be it trying something new or refining existing skills.

No Registration Required! Simply attend any or all of these workshops at your leisure.

All workshops will be hosted on Zoom. Zoom links will be provided in the Renegade Discord. A discord link is provided on the about page of our website.

Week One: Sunday Feb 1st - Saturday Feb 7th

Week Two: Sunday Feb 8th - Saturday Feb 14th

Week Three: Sunday Feb 15th - Saturday Feb 21st

Binderary is an event run by the Renegade Bindery’s discord server that is essentially a bookbinding intensive with online classes and workshops and everyone setting their own goals - whether that is finishing X number of books, mastering a new technique, or putting a dent in their work-in-progress pile.  This was my third year participating in Binderary and turned into the year of typesetting on the fly and sewn-in endpapers.

This year, like last year, I bound 12 books.  Unlike 2025, where I started the month with a few books already printed out and a slew of typesets in reserve, this year I got a late start because of travel and only started with four typesets prepped.  I blew through those fairly quickly and spent my lunch-breaks for the rest of the month frantically formatting fics, and made my goal just under the wire.

Binderary Stats!  12 books bound (3 folios, 4 legal quartos, 3 letter quartos, 2 octavos), making 652,621 words in 2,925 pages.  6 of the books were multi-work anthologies and 6 were single-fic volumes, with a duology included for variety.  There were 9ish fandoms represented, with 6 of the books being crossovers.  Only one author copy this time around, and in the end I’ve added around 9 inches of books to my shelf during this event. Thankfully I've acquired another bookshelf for this hobby, so I'm not in danger of running out of room from this event.

Like last year, all supplies were from stash.  I used up the last of my cobalt Allure bookcloth and finally finished a pack of scrapbook paper I bought at the dollar store about 20 years ago.  I also used up just over 100g of PVA, which made the level in my glue jar go down by nearly an inch (and that doesn’t include the methyl cellulose mix I was casing in with for the bigger books).

I'll be adding posts for the individual books in drips and drabs. It may take a while to get everything photographed with how gloomy things have been here recently. In the meantime, here's a cat.

Are there any authors out there who have a fic of theirs they'd like bound, for free? I just wrapped up a presentation for Binderary (whew!) and want to get into the swing of it and bind as many books as possible for the rest of the month. So, I'm taking requests for authors' copy gifts—it'd be totally free except for shipping.

My goal is to hit 48 books bound by the end of the year, so looking to bind a ton this month and need fics to bind!

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I'm looking for:

Fanfic authors

Who have never received a bound copy of one of their fics

Who are willing to pay for shipping (I'm US-based, it usually runs $5–$10 in to ship in the US or $20–$40 to ship outside the US)

The fic to be bound is less than 200,000 words long

I'm offering:

1 handbound copy of 1 fic per author

Simple, clean formatting + decoration of the book

No cost to you other than shipping

Aim to get books out by end-of-March (depending on # of interested authors)

Message me if you are an author who may be interested!

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

WIP photos below the cut.

Now, the struggle with fish leather is that it comes in very irregular oval-y shapes. I wanted the spine to have the right weight, so I cut the biggest rectangle I could wrangle from the hide, and belatedly realized my remnants weren't large enough to get good corner pieces. So that's something to consider in the future! But despite that, the fish handled like a dream, the gold and brown aligned BEAUTIFULLY with a wave fabric I had in my stash, and I shamelessly went back to the scale themed endpaper well. I usually don't like repeating myself so quickly, but I had a lot of fun designing this typeset, and this story is just a delight on every level!

Over the past year and a half:

The Discord size has doubled.

The membership has skyrocketed to nearly 200 members.

Our events have also doubled in participation!

We’ve started four brand new events!

We’ve launched 12 satellite servers with 414 members!

All this, and yet, there’s more to come! I’m pleased to announce yet another massive undertaking has finally come to fruition…

THE RENEGADE BOOKBINDING GUILD WEBSITE!

Renegade has grown so much and still remains such an incredible, vibrant community, and this step forward will only enable us to do so much more. There is still more work to be done, but it’s absolutely amazing how far we’ve come. I can’t wait to keep building this community with all the wonderful people in it! 🎉

We’re currently kicking off Binderary 2024 with a bang, with 34 workshops planned for the month of February, all completely free and community-run!

If you’re waiting for a sign, this is it! Come join us, and start your fanbinding journey!*

As part of this year's Binderary I lead an absolutely un-recorded "Altered Art Mini Bind-Along" - was it fun? For me, yes? For others, maybe?