Twin binding of The Seventeenth Step
This is it!
This summer, I had plans. I was going to sew clothes and write lots and and and... and I read Sherlock fanfiction the whole summer. I'm not that surprised, really. One new favourite that I found was katieforsythe's amazing series The Seventeenth step. If you haven't read it already, you've missed something. Book canon, wonderful use of language and lovely characterisation. You can find it here.
The thing is, since the text was so like the books, I felt that it needed to actually be a book. It would fit so well between covers of leather and marbled paper. My fingers itched for a chance to bind it. So I mustered all the courage I had (I'm kinda shy, and absolutely terrified of talking in English to people on internet, especially people I admire) and asked Katie Forsythe for permission to print her works and bind it into a one-of-a-kind book.
And here it is!
Note: I'm Swedish, and the bookbinding terms are in most cases roughly translated from swedish. It's very possible some of them are wrong, but as long as you all understand me... :)
This is not the book. This is a box to protect the book. I'm so fond of it that i'm actually considering making a box to protect the box.
Since it's Sherlock Holmes, I just had to make a secret compartment in the spine of the box. There should be a cocaine syringe in there, but there are limits to what I do for my art...
Materials for the box: Cardboard, paste marbled paper, leather.
I marbled the paper myself, this one is inpired by the London fog of the 1880's.
And here's the book! When I printed it out, it was massive. Someone in my class suggested that instead of making it into one single volume, I should make a twin binding of it. The idea suited the text wonderfully well, since the fics are about Holmes and Watson, and a bit about two halves fitting perfectly together.
So this is a twin binding. It looks like two books stacked on top of each other, but as you can see, it's really one volume.
I had to include one of the original illustrations as well.
Since the seventeenth step in the title refers to the 221b Baker Street staircase, I printed the title... well, like a staircase.
Soon I will post another entry about making the book, and how everything is thought through to fit with the text. Thank's for looking, and a million thank to katieforsythe for letting me do this (and for writing such lovely stories).
Edit: The "making of"-post is here.