Finally found the Rush album we've been missing. ~dances~
And! andandand... I've got two books down and one to go!
Had some "fun" with the cover of one of the books--my original idea hit a snag, and I had to do a bit of reworking. But it turned out better with the reworking than the original would've been, so no loss.
The other... heh. ~grin~ The other is the second ugliest little book I've ever put together, but I am so damn proud of it, the thing may as well be family. You see, it's several firsts for me, all wrapped up in one periwinkle-and-purple package--my first wood-board book, my first leather binding, and my first time sewing in endbands! The corners are wonky and no two match, the headband looks nothing like the tailband, the pastedown papers are gaudy and too small (but handpainted!), and it doesn't sit quite square. AND the pages jut out from the foredge by a good eighth of an inch.
But it doesn't matter. Because it did what I made it to do: Now, when I'm working on the commissioned book, I'll know: tab the corners so they're not so bulky; measure the living daylights out of the pastedowns before you cut them or put them in; DON'T PUT THE PASTEDOWNS IN UNTIL EVERYTHING ELSE IS DONE! Keep track of where the needle's going in the spine, so the endbands look as pretty from the spine-side as they do from the inside. And Don't Be Afraid Of Leather. It's dead. It can't get you.
~bright smile~
I read someone's advice to new makers-of-things, saying roughly, "Don't spend a lot of time building a thing in your head; it just gives your inner critic ammunition when what you actually make doesn't exactly match the thing in your head. Instead, get a flash of an idea and go with it. Plan as you go."
And to a point, yeah, I can see the value in what she's saying. You've got to not get too attached to one outcome, because angels and demons are in the details.
But to a point, I find her advice to be nonsense. My flash of an idea will almost always be beyond me without I spend a few hours (or days) mentally building it and tearing it down and rebuilding it and poking its seams. That way, when the time comes to actually physically MAKE the thing, and something goes sideways, I'll have 1) an idea why things slipped and 2) a host of contingency plans in the wings, to patch it back up.
Eh.
I'm learning to take tutorials and advice like an owl takes a mouse--whole. Digest what you need; hurl the rest.
Labels: bookbinding, learning curve