I finally bound my 50th book and it felt weird

I hit 50 hand-bound books last week and honestly I expected to feel proud but mostly I just noticed all the mistakes I still make. The spine on number 50 was actually worse than my 30th book. Does anyone else feel like hitting a milestone just shows you how far you still have to go?

3 comments

3 Comments

emma34910d agoTop Commenter

Oh god I feel this so much. I hit 100 handbound books a few months back and all I could focus on was the crooked text block on number 99 and a glue stain on the endpapers of 100. I actually thought my binding was getting smoother but I still get bubbles in the bookcloth and my corners are never sharp enough. It's like the more you learn the more you see all the stuff you're doing wrong. But I bet your 50th book still holds together better than some store bought ones, even if it feels messy to you.

hall.quinn10d ago

Man, @emma349 you took the words right out of my mouth. It's that thing where you start seeing all the tiny flaws that nobody else would ever notice, right? I swear my first few books were garbage but I was proud of them, and now I do cleaner work but I'm ten times harder on myself. The bubbles in bookcloth thing drives me crazy too, I've tried different glues and different brushes and it still happens sometimes. But you're totally right about the 50th book holding up better than a store one, mine have that handmade solid feel that mass produced ones just don't have.

paul_lane8010d ago

Man the crooked text block thing haunts my dreams too, every single book I see the little mistakes nobody else notices.