bookbinding <3

Bookbinding is such a cool thing, and fanbinding especially so! I've been wanting to get into it for a long time, but there are so many moving parts and I've just been procrastinating... so much. But I finally went to a bookbinding for beginner's workshop! It was awesome! XD

It was only the first of several occasions, so we only got partway through. We got to the part of making the holes in the signatures (we SAWED them. I've been wondering you you do that, and it's a SAW, lol, that's fabulous) but the next one isn't for like a month (cry). I've also gotten OurHands' bookbinding kit, which I've not used yet, but it includes a instruction book with 3 different sewing methods.

And I finally got my grubby paws on a laser printer, so baby, we're in business.

I've got a little booklet now of a fic I adore :) The first attempt, I folded it wrong (quarto) and the middle sheet got all out of order. That could probably have been avoided if I used page numbers, lol. But it was only a first attempt, and I was using normal sewing thread to practice the technique, so I'm not fussed.

For the second attempt, I think I got the fold right and I used waxed thread, which looks very cool. Also darker cream paper, because I can't read on bright white paper without getting a headache. (A depressing amount of self-published prose fiction books use white paper instead of cream, which always gets me down. Especially now that I've moved away from Kindle and am only getting paperbacks of such books on Amazon.)

I'm really pleased! <3 So far I can only do booklets, but there are lots of short fics I'd love to have in my hands, and I'm excited to explore options for formatting. There's a few things I want to adjust for the next try, but I'm having lots of fun! I sort of get how to use bookbinder.js, too!

Next month, I'm definitively going to burn more money on tools, lol. (My poor budget.)