#leather bookbinding

Fanbinding(ish): Moby Dick by Herman Melville

If you've been following me for a while you may remember that I started this typeset in, ahem, November 2022. Finished it in October 2023. Finished binding it in 2025. Did I make it take 3 years on purpose? Or was it always second on my list of projects and I was totally going to do it soon?... I don't want to talk about it.

Blatant lie: I do want to talk about it.

What's fun about this bind is that I found the leather for it in Greece in spring 2024. It's shiny! It's sort of pearlescent! It's white! It's absolutely not made for bookbinding! I knew that at the time, but hear me out: it was shiny. It was sort of pearlescent. It was white. It was also prone to scuff marks and stretchy as fuck.

It was also, it turned out, about 1" too short to do a full cover.

So I abandoned my dream of doing this Beatles White Album style and added the stripe down the middle. (I then drew a harpoon on that stripe at the last second because I thought it looked too much like a flag.)

I used a hot stamping machine to make the patches for the spine. It was my first time trying that: in the future, I'm going to pare the leather before cutting the patch, as that gave me a lot of trouble and I was ultimately unsuccessful. So it looks a little bulky right here, but, such is life. I seriously considered listing the author as Merman Helville, but I refrained.

This was my third laced-cord binding (wherein the cords are laced in through holes in the cover board and then hammered--mostly--flat) and I've decided it will be my last. Will I stick to this? Who knows, that's what I said when I finished my first one and also my second one. I might try fake raised cords in the future, or sew onto cords but then only lace them in through one hole to keep the cover smooth. This would mean I still have to fray them out, though, which is not particularly fun. (It's improved by doing so while watching Black Sails.)

My goal for the typeset was to make it technically readable but absolutely impractical, and I think I have achieved this.

Fanbinding(ish): Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

Leather on bookboard, with hot foil stamping on the spine. The endpapers are a Japanese wave design, partially as a reference to Canaan House being on the water, and is also a reference to the fact that this book was a birthday present for @eebeesee, who is a giant weeb. (Fun fact: I bought that paper in 2012 and have been waiting uh, 11 years, to find the perfect project for it.)

Process under the cut.

Fanbinding(ish): The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkein

This is the first time since high school that I've tried converting a paperback into a hardback, and it was more finnicky than I remembered: possibly because my standards have risen. The FA:FO ratio was skewed a bit towards the later.

Some process photos under the cut.

Fanbinding: Do Every Stupid Thing by thepartyresponsible

Fanbinding: Anthem for a Doomed Youth by @fahye

When she was younger she watched people carefully in order to become them, but it was like memorising a song in another language: the imitation was perfect but she never bothered to learn what it meant.

I started this about a year and a half ago when I was first experimenting with leather bindings: I didn't like it, so I stuck both copies (with equally bad bindings) in a drawer for a while before finally cutting the bad covers off a few weeks ago.

I made the one at the top first (which I sent to the author): I was planning on duplicating it exactly for the second one, but there were some flaws in the second piece of leather I wanted to cover up, and I didn't have any more good edge on that first blue. So! They get to be mirrors of each other instead. (I think I like the lighter blue better, but prefer the author name on the right side of the cover.)

Fic binding: In Which Merlin Reveals His Magic, Arthur Embarks On A Quest, And Uther Absolutely Does Not Admit He Was Wrong About Anything, Ever, by @alex51324

A treasured journal, commissioned by Clara for her good friend and colleague Chrissie, who was leaving Singapore after working together for many years. 

This full Harmatan Fine Goat bright pink leather binding had matching pink and grey hand coloured floatage endpapers, as well as five false raised bands to give the journal a very classic yet contemporary finish. Fair goat leather was used for the onlay of Chrissie's initials. 

This journal was then calligraphed by Clarence of Craft Varies (http://craftvaries.com/) on various pages, before being passed on to over twenty colleagues who wrote special messages to Chrissie.