Purgatory_Pomegranate

mkfusionink

The gang’s love of throwing people off bridges for minor inconviences is probably the funniest thing ever:

renato-crepaldi

Red Fern marbled paper. Marbled in red paper with black, dark red, bright red, metallic gold, metallic silver and metallic copper. Limited edition of 10. Numbered, signed and dated. Sheet size is 26"x37" (66x94cm).

artschoolglasses

Various tools used for gold foil embossing book covers

Dublin Castle, Ireland

librarycompany

This week our #publishersbindingThursday post goes #outofthisworld with three delightfully star-studded covers. Because we couldn’t pick just one.

Proctor, R.A. The Expanse of Heaven: a Series of Essays on the Wonders of the Firmament. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1889.

Raymond, Rossiter W. The Man in the Moon, and Other People. New York : The American News Company, 1874.

Rambosson, J. Astronomy. New York: D. Appleton & Co., [187-?].

queercore-curriculum

warmfoothills/ @forestgreenlesbian: selected works

warmfoothills (@forestgreenlesbian here on tumblr) is one of the greatest fanfiction writers I’ve ever read, in Harry/Draco fandom or anywhere. I’ve bookmarked more stories written by her than any other author, and I love them all. warmfoothills reminds me of a fannish Jane Austen: the rich and nuanced way she captures every character and relationship; how deftly she balances sincere emotion and bright, kind-hearted humor; the brilliant references to other works and genres. Her writing is a vivid celebration of love and friendship, a tribute to the joys of shipping two characters who often live in dark, angsty places–not because she ignores that darkness, but because her work is so lovely and humane.

As soon as I decided to take up ficbinding, I knew I needed a warmfoothills anthology because I return to her stories again and again. The binding is a variation on a secret Belgian binding that was inspired by Japanese stab binding. Here’s what’s inside:

warmest part of winter

A lovely, intimate eighth year fic that does a wonderful job of showing Harry’s and Draco’s apprehension about returning to Hogwarts after the war. Plus some very charming Romeo and Juliet references!

flashback, warm nights

I. LOVE. THIS. FIC. It features two of my favorite things–Draco helping the Golden Trio hunt for horcruxes and time loops. It’s funny and thrilling and bittersweet. My favorite Christmas fic of all time!

heavyweight

Oh man, this one has to be my favorite. Feat. Draco “slumming it” in Notting Hill and working at a preppy Muggle bar for purely existential reasons, and a very persistent Harry. It’s the best character study of post-war Draco that I’ve ever read. Really moody without ever feeling overworked, and remarkable attention to detail. A perfect fic, easily one of my favorite fics of all time.

amid this warm and steady sweetness

No one does fluff like warmfoothills. Fluff is always lovely, but she really elevates it to a place of high art. This story has everything: period drama references, romantic comedy, found family, meta, and facials. It’s pure sunshine in written form. 10/10!

i wake up falling

Draco is an astronaut who has to move to Florida, and after they break up Harry can’t let him go. I love established relationship Harry/Draco, and this fic is so well-done. It does such a beautiful job capturing the yearning of a long-distance relationship.

keep it down

The ultimate “oh my god they were roommates” fic! Everyone lives at Grimmauld place and it’s great. Unbelievably funny and charming and hot, plus the best Ginny I’ve ever read and fantastic hints of Ginny/Luna. Seriously, it’s a perfect fic, and another of my Drarry GOATs.

katarinanavane

The Art Assignment on YouTube challenged us to make a book out of atypical materials, so here is my mini book of curios. Materials: nature items, packing tape, thread.

hedgehog-moss

I always hire my guests to help me with ‘chores’ (if they’re willing!), the kind of task that’s fun at first but less fun when you have to keep going for hours (burning all the broom bushes in the pasture, picking many kg of berries to make syrup, carrying a mountain of logs into the wood shed and building stable log piles so they don’t come cascading down later…) And every time I’m amazed by the way humans can make the most tedious tasks genuinely fun through… group dynamics? just the way people start interacting and bonding with each other when everyone is focused on the same repetitive physical activity. It’s hard to find examples because it’s always so specific to each situation; but I mean things like

people spontaneously specialising and developing a feeling of expertise and pride in their subtrade, no matter how silly (putting away firewood involved one Log Selecter outside going back and forth delivering logs to two Pile Builders who piled them up in the shed, and each rapidly created their own well-oiled System and became convinced it would be hard to replace them now that they had mastered their craft)
new vocabulary being coined and immediately adopted (the Pile Builders came up with nicknames for logs of different lengths and shapes so they could ‘order’ them from the Log Selecter more efficiently—”I’ve got a One-Armed Bandit here, I need another one to fit next to it, but with an ‘arm’ on the other side” “Here” “The arm is on the same side!” “Just turn it around and the arm will be on the other side”)
songs emerging almost by themselves (a song about fishing mussels was repurposed into a song about picking plums; a whole new song was invented to encourage weirdly-shaped logs to fit in with the others as we tried to fill all the gaps)
stories being told. Weaving a trivial task into a complex imaginary plot and context to make it more entertaining and meaningful
the extremely human compulsion to write down our knowledge to share it with future generations (I was told to take note of the best & quickest knot to tie up foliage when making tree hay, for the benefit of whoever does it next summer)
beliefs as to the Right Way To Do Things quickly solidifying into myths or superstitions, as we forget what drove us to do things this way in the first place, but trust that we had good reasons so now it’s the Way It’s Done

I always tell people to help only if they feel like it and we can stop anytime and I’ll finish later by myself, but what usually happens instead is that they want to come back at the same time next year to do this exact chore again because of how they’ve made it theirs in just a few days (or in one afternoon!) Give a group of humans a banal task and while they’re at it they will come up with a whole new inside slang, a few work songs and a handful of founding texts and myths, until it feels special and important. I love seeing the way these miniature folklores just emanate from people doing things together.