ehyde: (Default)
[personal profile] ehyde
This book has made it to its recipient, so now I can share!

Handmade book opened flat, showing the front and back covers. The title "Cut Him Out in Little Stars" is printed in gold on a galaxy print background.

The fic "Cut Him Out in Little Stars" by ChaoticAndrogynous, in which Wei Wuxian is reborn as a comet, is possibly my favorite fic I've read in the past year. I started typesetting it almost immediately after reading it last summer, but various other projects happened and I didn't finish the binding until now.


Title page, which is a two-page spread with an old-fashioned drawing of planets and a comet orbiting the sun, along with the title.

Although this fic isn't a scifi au in the classic sense, it is still very much in space (do you enjoy having feelings about the vastness of space and also time? read this fic) and I went with a space theme for the binding. I have held onto this cover paper since I started bookbinding and saw someone else us it on a different book--it's from a Michael's paper pack--and I was waiting for the perfect fic and this was it. The paper pack came with two sheets of this pattern and I...promptly cut one of them an inch too short *facepalm*. So the two copies of this book (one for the author, one for myself) have different covers.

The endpapers, made from paper that resembles the surface of the moon

The endpapers are "Moon" handmade paper from Hook Pottery Paper, and the cool thing about this paper is that it's not a printed pattern--it's made with different colors of paper fiber. It was also a dream to work with, one of the most cooperative case-ins I've done, so I may end up using paper from this maker even for solid colors.

The first page of the fic.

The title font is "Tycho's Elegy" which is based on the handwriting of Tycho Brahe (not the historical astronomer who shows up in the fic, but thematically adjacent and also it's pretty). I found some old astronomy illustrations online and modified them for the title page and the chapter header. In the book, Wei Wuxian's comet appears purple from earth, hence the purple ribbon and purple in the endbands; I also sewed the book with purple thread (the comet appears every 23 years; the stitching, every 24 pages. Close enough?).

Top view of the book, showing foiled gold edges with a star pattern, purple and black striped headbands, and a purple ribbon bookmark.

The cover paper already had a foiled gold design. I added the title with a foil quill (via silhouette machine) but the foil quill didn't take well to my bookcloth (it's a homemade bookcloth from a linen/cotten/sparkle fabric), so I ended up just making the spine title from htv. I foiled the page edges with a holographic star patterned foil, and you can see a video of me doing the foil edges here.

The other cover paper.

This is my (I think) twentieth bookbinding project, and thirty-somethingth individual book, since I started bookbinding two years ago. Maybe I'll make a stats post/retrospective later!


Date: 2023-07-17 11:25 pm (UTC)
china_shop: text icon that says "age shall not weary her, nor custom stale her infinite squee" (age shall not weary her)
From: [personal profile] china_shop
Wow, this is stunning!

Profile

ehyde: (Default)
ehyde

April 2025

S M T W T F S
  12345
6789 101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
27282930   

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Dec. 25th, 2025 11:14 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios