#sits bound

This is one of those fics that I loved so much that I knew I was going to bind it as soon as I finished it. Especially since I'd recently created a typeset for Persuasion that I knew would work perfectly for this fic.

Some new techniques I used for this bind:

First time I did a cutout on the cover. I wanted to have it peek through the end papers but I just could not figure out how to do it. So I decided to mount the art on the backside of the cover and then hide it behind the endpapers.

First time I speckled the edges! It's not nearly as messy as I thought it'd be, but I do have an extreme aversion to the texture of toothbrush bristles, so I had to be a grown up and get over it, because it is the easiest way to do these.

The endpapers on my bind were made by my beautiful and lovely friend @maleekamolscreates, and the ones I used for Fluffy's bind are my beloved Ink Drops cardstock.

I used white HTV for the lettering on my copy, but silver on the author copy (which now I wish I'd used on mine, but no big deal.)

The gorgeous art was made by @substellaris, commissioned by @upon-poppyhills.

@sits-bound surprised me with an incredible little fan bind of my recent @hd-erised fic City of Light (gift for @mars-bar81). It’s so perfect! Look how shiny and sparkly the cover is! Look at the perfect font and the pink chapter headers! Look at the little Eiffel Tower page breaks!! Thank you so much, sweet friend. I will treasure this always.

[Podfic] like summer when you start to speak by @pocket-lin (T, 8 minutes)

I was gifted this utterly lovely fic by the author for an exchange we did, and it's so soft and wonderful that I wanted to record it. So I did! I also sent Lin a tiny bound version of it.

Look, I'm a sucker for a Jane Austen AU, and in the Heated Rivalry fandom, I really love non-Hockey AUs, so this Pride & Prejudice/authors AU was right up my alley. And oh my, it's so wonderful. I knew as I was reading it that I was going to want to bind it.

(in case you were wondering, I'm team 1995)

The series of these two fics is "the thing perhaps is to eat flowers and not to be afraid", which comes from an e.e. cummings poem. Which is why there's an entire poem on the title page.

Okay, so. I had this gorgeous red paper I bought in Washington last month, and it paired gorgeously with this red bookcloth I recently bought. So I was going to use the foil quill to put the title on, but the text just came out blobby, so I had to think of something else. Skivertex to the rescue! I swear that stuff is magic when it comes to foil quill.

I also was inspired by @maleekamolscreates's use of labels on a recent bind for the titles, and I kind of took that further by extending the "label" across the entire cover. I really love how it came out! I had this vision of an apple on the cover, but it wasn't working for me, so I decided to keep it simple and nixed the apple.

I kept the typeset fairly simple, but it was fun adding in some photographs that were in the text of the fic. I did at least get to use the apple motif in the section dividers.

When it came time (like, the next day) to make my own copy, I went with a different color scheme because I didn't have enough of the red paper. So I used this gorgeous marbled paper that Mally made and went with blue instead of red on the cover. The colors of the endbands and edge speckles come from the endpapers, but I think it's kind of hard to tell. (Also I'm mad at myself for forgetting to speckle the edges of the author copy.)

I had a brief dalliance with the Inception fandom a year or so ago when @pennyplainknits mentioned this really great coffee shop AU that they'd recorded. After listening to it, I went in search of more Inception fics recorded by Penny, and I recognized this author, @toomuchplor from Drarry, and dove right in, even though I know basically nothing about classical music, piano playing, or opera. (I mean, now I'm basically an expert.)

Anyway, I decided to bind the whole Steinway!verse series, which is 29 fics totalling 175,000 words. It was fun.

The fics varied wildly in length, from under 1000 words to over 26k. Each fic got a line drawing of a piano that I then foiled with gold toner foil. (That was really fun, cutting the foil so I didn't get any gold on the letters!) Sadly I could only find about 15 different piano designs, so I had to repeat some of them, and I nearly lost my mind trying to make sure I didn't put any twins too close to each other. 😅

The cover! I love the cover. I went to a big used book sale while I was working on this and bought this booklet with the music and words for an opera, which just seemed fitting since Eames is an opera singer in the fics. I scanned it and cleaned it up and changed out the wording, obviously. It's printed on canvas, and I was so freaking pleased that the spacing was perfect.

I hand sewed the endbands but forgot a bookmark ribbon. Oops.

More details:

Printable canvas

End papers (so dreamy!) from Paper Source

Body font: Corundum Text

Chapter headers, drop caps: Thirsty Script

Art on title page: The Musician, Louis Casimir Ladislas Marcoussis, 1914

Here's my contribution to the Rookie Moves April Fool's Exchange. I collaborated on it with @amomorii who is an INCREDIBLE artist (and writer!) It was so much fun working with Sam.

The design on the dust jacket was based on this illustration that Sam found. ISN'T IT PERFECT?

Obviously I had to put my favorite line on the back. (Did I mention I got it tattooed? I did.)

I couldn't find the perfect scene break graphics, so I asked Sam to do them, and they are exactly what I wanted. Every chapter has a themed icon.

Did I buy a wide format printer and a roll of soft-touch laminate just so I could make this book exactly as I wanted? Maybe.

The inner book is very simple in design, but I love how it came out. The spine is…I don't even know what, but I put the title on it with the foil quill on my Silhouette. Came out gorgeously. And then the covers are covered in a suede-like paper (some variety of Skivertex). I love how it feels.

Fonts Body: Baskerville Chapters: Lemon/Milk Italic

Do I have enough copies of this fic/series? I don't think that's possible.

Maybe you've heard of this author? She's rather well known.

I made this for a friend. Her favorite Jane Austen book is Persuasion. (Hey I'm cultured too, my favorite movie is Sense & Sensibility!)

Anyhoo, I got the text from Project Gutenberg and created the typeset and used lots of frilly and fun decorations. I wanted to do an elaborate HTV design for the cover, but I got v frustrated and went simple, instead.

My friend loved it!

All my friend @maleekamolscreates had to ask was, "have you ever made a legal quarto version of Rookie Moves" and I was off to the races, creating yet another bind of this iconic fic.

I used Mally's own typeset as an inspiration, including the art @faiell had created back when a bunch of us did a big Twenty-Two Cards swap.

One fun thing about this bind was that I marbled my own end papers. Kinda. In Procreate. After I cut up the handmade paper for Mally's version, I realized I didn't have enough for two copies, but I also didn't have any other paper that would work well. And although I want to start marbling paper myself, and I even have all of the supplies, I just keep putting it off because it requires prep and also it's going to be messy and it takes time, etc, etc.

But then I realized, hey, I could probably replicate it in Procreate, and then I can match the colors perfectly! So that's what I did. I did not send the version with those papers to Mally because Mally makes the most gorgeous marbled papers and it would be an insult to send her digitally marbled paper. An insult to her craft.

My endbands are getting better, I think!

I used Skivertex (yet again, I love this stuff) for the cover, and the art was printed onto printable HTV and carefully cut out. The title is metallic HTV. I printed it on 28 lb paper to give it some extra chonk.