#ficbind

It’s been a minute since I made a book, but I’m finally done with this copy of The Grindr Logo Doesnt Even Have a ‘G’ In It, an Aziraphale/Crowley fic by @indieninja92 ! This story has fucking everything. It’s achingly tender, funny, hot, and heartwrenching by turns, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

(Tumblr mobile refuses to let me paste links for whatever reason, but it can be read on AO3.)

I had a hell of a time figuring out a design forthis one. Instead of designing a dust jacket like usual, I opted for a paper label/cover and I think it turned out really well! The silk moire was a real bastard to work with and was more finicky with the glue than I like, so I’ll be sticking to cotton-based bookcloth in the future. The iPhone text headers were fun to play around with though! 😄

Technical details ➡️

Book cloth: Silk moire in platinum from Hollander’s

Endpapers: Chiyogami fireworks from Hollander’s

Fonts: SF Rounded (title) and Sabon (body)

Designed in Photoshop and Canva

‼️ My binds are not for sale. Authors and artists can request gift copies. Keep fanfiction free and legal! ‼️

With over 20 years in fandom, I dedicate myself to binding the stories I like: with more passion than talent 😂. I also reblog the work of others as a way of celebrating fandom and these beautiful works of fan art that are bound fan fiction. For other ficbinders' work, I always use the same hashtag so that they can be found easily: "Fantastic ficbinders and where to find them"

My first completed ficbind!

I wanted to do something on the smaller side and I am really glad I did. Overall I think this came out alright for my very first attempt but I did learn a lot through this process and will do even better next time!

I bound Police Dog by surveycorpsjean which is a Kyoutani Kentaro/Yahaba Shigeru dog shifter fic. It won't be everyone's cup of tea due to the cop au and shifter tag but I love this story so much!

Fic: Police Dog by surveycorpsjean

Cover: @/kuckoonut (has since deactivated)

Back Cover: @pofusoup

The young adventurer's club by Artemisgrl

Summary:

"Bored by unchallenging classes? Sick of sitting around, doing nothing grand? Eager to learn forgotten magics and gain power beyond your wildest dreams? Join the Young Adventurer's Club now!" A mysterious poster for a new club catches Severus' eye. Little does he know... What the club has planned will challenge everything he knows and change the course of his entire life.

The cover is made of ecru canvas (homemade book cloth), printed on a gel plate with black acrylic. The title and image are made with stencils.

I wanted to evoke the idea of an old, rustic, well-used and worn -out document.

Kill your darlings by MesserMoon, a fantastic fic you could read at AO3 for free.

I love this story, and am happy to have it in my collection. That said, I can tell you that this binding was very eventful.

I think I will change my name to Not Perfct bindery. The two volumes of this book took me a long time, because I was buried in workload. It seems that every day I picked up this binding project, I made some mistake. The worst one was sewing the signatures too tightly so it was impossible to round the spine. Another mistake I made while cutting the fabric, as can be seen, the covers were in different proportions. This is my 60th binding; and I must learn that in excess of confidence lies the danger.

What do you think about rebinding your early ficbinds?

Looking at mine, I see so many mistakes that it makes me want to redo them, but on the other hand, they are a testament to my progress, a constant reminder of what I've learn.

My fifth bind is complete! This is a collection of some of my absolute favorite short Good Omens fics (sub-20k words) which I sorted into rough thematic categories. This book features works by @thehoyden and @darcylindbergh (among others who I don’t think are on Tumblr) as well as a cover image graciously provided by @adealiz ♥️

Technical details follow:

This was my first time working with this specific paper (which I cut to the correct grain direction! What a delight!) as well as my first time using hand-marbled endpaper (as opposed to printed scrapbook paper.) The endpaper was much thinner than what I’m used to, so I had a little unexpected glue moisture rippling.

I think I’ll be switching my fonts up going forward. I keep having issues getting Garamond to print consistently.

For the cover, I used a faux leather upholstery patch. I printed the cover image on printable vinyl and added some silver lettering stickers. It might not be the most durable/travelable thing ever, but it looks nice on the shelf.

I’m so happy to have this one done—the learning process never ends. I’m already typesetting my next two binds, another Good Omens fic and a Star Trek AU 😊

Exactly five years ago, I took my first binding out of the nipping press. [Well, actually, I took it out from under a board with lots of books on top of it.] I made a simple bradel notebook. Without realising it, I embarked on a journey from which I have learned a great deal:

After accidentally stumble upon the work of @queercore-curriculum, I realised that this was what I want to do; BUT I have ADHD and used to start hobbies only to abandon them after a few days. Why bookbinding wasn't the same?

Finding @renegadeguild and the people on Tumblr made me feel like I wasn't alone in this. My husband was also very patient in helping me (he learned how to bind books to help me, and he made me several tools).

At first, it was hard: I didn't measure well, didn't cut straight, stained everything with glue. I even cried out of frustration! Today, I find bookbinding to be my space for creativity and personal expression, as well as my time for mindfulness.

In my fifties, bookbinding taught me that talent is something that develops with practice (lots and lots of practice); that it's okay to make mistakes, because nothing bad happens beyond having to start over; I have developed patience and persistence; I have found consistency and order in areas other than those I developed professionally. In addition, I developed a great respect and admiration for manual labour in all its forms.

As David Bowie once said:

"Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don't feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting".