Towns End Bindery

Embroidered book binding by Elizabeth Burden for 'Ballads and Sonnets' (1881) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Beige silk cloth with mesh of gold thread is oversewn with flowers and leaves in imitation of the cover designed for the standard copy by the author, Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

So glad to finally have this done. Took me a lot longer to finish the paintings on the inside than I'd have liked, and I'm still seeing all the flaws, B U T I'm not redoing either at this point. Super pleased with the binding; I used a different thread type and it felt god to work with.

DCXDP - If you find a vigilante in the dumpster by lunamugetsu

V 1 & 2 (28/05/2026), 

Volume 1: This is a really fun cover and I love the way it has turned out. I originally had the idea to have the word dumpster be in the ‘shape/image’ of a dumpster placed over a simple one colour background but after playing around with font types and angles, I just couldn’t figure that out. I did still like the idea of a dumpster though so I went through a few different dumpster images before choosing one and then editing it to make it longer to fit the word dumpster across with a loopy font. I then added a bunch of different scratches and grubbiness and a bloody handprint as if getting out of the dumpster. After that I built up the background by finding a brick wall photo which I duplicated and edited with different colour tones, shadows, textures, light and shadows. For the rest of the text for the title, I quickly decided I wanted to do graffiti type fonts. I used 2 from font space with a focus on red hood red, black and ecto green choices. I added a bat, some splatters, volume number and shadows and glows. I threw on a red hood helmet with a crack. For the back, I choose 2 fonts and matching red and green colouring for the summary. This cover took me 51 minutes to create.

Volume 2: For this cover I kept the graffiti fonts and positioning of the title text and had the dumpster word scratch across a nice sofa. I created a room background with a textured white background, duplicated thin white trim and some edited floor design. I kept the spine and back the same; while I didn't change the summary, I likely would in future before printing off the 2nd volume cover. I created a little kiddy area with different toys, shadows and decorations. I kept the cracked red hood helmet on the cover and over the top of the whole wrap cover, I added a window shadow at a faint transparency level I liked with a little ghost hint on the back. This cover took me 21 minutes.

This rebinding/restoration project took me several months but was so so worth it.

This is a 1994 Russian edition compiling four Moomin stories, one of my childhood favorites (from when I was so sure that Tove Jansson used black and white illustrations solely so that I could have lots of fun coloring them).

ta da! with @startingatmidnight's blessing, i present to you..... a paperback copy of their fantastic fic, the astrobiology immersion program.

Adding a new tool to my bookbinding kit.

I was tagged by the wonderful @lyragoth to share an update on one of my current WIPs (thank you! 💚).

Figured I’d better practice on my own books before I try to bind anyone else’s words into physical copies.

Things I’ve learned:

1. Toner activated foil won’t work on coated paper (boo), so triple-check before investing in a bunch of black cardstock you can’t use for anything else 😅

2. You can’t apply a protective wax coating over the top of toner. So laser printing the covers didn’t work for me.

3. Some cardstock is simply is too thick for printers. I ended up wasting money on black *and* silver cardstock before giving up and printing directly onto nice scrapbook paper.

4. Rubbing excess glue out of book cloth is not fun. Try to avoid.

5. Painter’s tape is *not* low stick enough to come off of book board without taking a layer with it :/

I’m nervous about casing the text blocks in, but that’s literally the only step left. Fingers crossed and wish me luck.

More process shots below!

Mediterranean motifs 🌞

Typography Tuesday

Cathedral of Type

This 32-inch long typographic broadside was printed at The Press of Robert LoMascolo in Aurora, N. Y. and is included in the portfolio of the deluxe edition of Parenthesis 27 (Autumn 2014), the journal of the Fine Press Book Association, in a limited edition of 125. LoMascolo writes:

A typosignet, or type picture, is an image composed of typographic ornaments, type, and rule. As a painter may use brush strokes to create a visual illusion, so too may the adventurous typographer use type to paint a picture. Whether composed of metal type, or digitally, the creation process is a tedious one of trial and error. This unusual form of art was perhaps brought to a climax by the talents of Albert Schiller, 1899-1970, but is carried on in this small way by The Press of Robert LoMascolo.

Our issues of Parenthesis are another donation from the estate of our late friend Dennis Bayuzick.

View more posts from Parenthesis.

Whatever Our Souls are Made Of by damagecontrol & solmussa. Cover based off the 1899 book “In Ghostly Japan” by Lafcadio Hearn. Typeset and design by me. 🌸

Back before I was a jegulus convert I knew I would be reading this Hanahaki fic because I am truly powerless against the yearn. The pine. And this fic is a classic for a reason - it is so so good.

I knew I needed a cover with flowers/blossoms and when I came across this gorgeous Sakura cover I thought “easy enough!” WRONG!! I am not exaggerating when I say I spent 10 hours on these covers - tracing, cutting, weeding, applying HTV to bookcloth and THEN applying to the case to get the seamless wrap around (so stressful). I was TIRED when all was said and done 😅 but I LOVE how they turned out. Honorable mentions to the sewn endbands and typeset details. So when I go on a paperback bender to decompress after a vintage bind, now you know 😉

Keep fanfiction free, freaky, and fuck joanne.

they are magical, please go get yourself one if you have a problem like me. thank you for making them @thispapercloud!!! (and sorry to tag you like on every platform, but i'm sure you know how it is lol)

PSA this was my first go at adding a hardcover to an old paperback book, so I picked something simple to try and test my materials on.

It's extremely badly done lmao and I need better calibration on my printer BUT I now know what types of paper work and how to improve next time.

Working on a way to create shiny covers. Considering lamination and varnishes.

Designed the cover myself etc.

The original paperback cover -> my hardback rebind.

I used ArmoredSuperHeavy's tutorial to format and print the text and then followed Eat0crow's instructions for binding it.