Count Your Blessings Binding May 2024

After many years, guess who decided to try their hand at bookbinding again?

That's right, me! And of course I chose I giant of a fic, because I  am nothing if not ambitious   It came out to about 3" thick and a whopping 1088 pages! The fic is called Count Your Blessings by madmothmadame , and is a Founders Era Tobirama centric fic and I cannot recommend it enough <3 <3 <3

My cover fabric and end paper are pretty simple, one part because I  thought it suited the story, one part because I had them on hand, and  one part because I'm a raw beginner and that's about as good as I could  manage

It took a lot of waffling on my part (graphic design is NOT a  great skill of mine) but overall I ended up really happy with how the  title page came out - if I had the artistic skill to paint/draw it or  the supplies to transfer it, this would have gone on the cover as well.  Alas, for now it shall remain inside only.

A little detail that gave me some grief, as I waffled on font  style and size a bit, but ultimately I'm really pleased with it - I used  a plum blossom branch as the scene break throughout the book. If you've  read the fic, you probably know why I picked that particular image for  this and the title page

I realized after printing that some of my paper had gotten a bit  aged, even though it was stored in the printer. I wasn't about to waste  the paper, ink and time for a reprint though, so I left it. Since the  book is for me, little things like that are no bother. I was just glad I  didn't fuck up in the printing or signature sewing order

I included the authors notes from the end of each chapter as a  bonus section at the end, so they'd be preserved with the story but not  breaking up the flow of reading the book

Final view, this time from the spine - think I left the gap a little to wide between the cover boards and spine but eh, again this is just for me and only my third binding ever (and certainly the largest! ) so I'm still really pleased overall.

A very fun experience, and I'm looking forward to my next re-read of the story, where I'll be doing it with my very own chonky boi version held in my hands