Hit 100 hand-bound books this week without noticing

I was cleaning my workshop Wednesday and stacking up all my finished projects. Counted them up and realized I have bound exactly 100 books since I started three years ago. The first one was a mess with crooked signatures and glue on the cover, but number 100 was a nice leather journal for a friend in Portland. Has anyone else hit a round number like that and felt surprised by how far they've come?

2 comments

2 Comments

averywright22d ago

Oh man, I gotta say I'm not buying this whole "proud of the journey" thing. 100 books in three years sounds like a lot of time and money thrown at something that doesn't really pay off unless you're selling them. Most of those probably just sit on a shelf or in a drawer, right? I mean, a leather journal for a friend is nice and all, but that's one person who'll actually use it. The rest are just clutter you have to dust. You could've bought a hundred decent notebooks from the store for less than the cost of all that leather and glue, and they'd probably look better too. Craft hobbies are fine but don't act like this is some big achievement when the end result is basically the same as something you can pick up at Target.

elliotjenkins21d ago

Bro calm down lol. It's not that deep. People do hobbies because they enjoy them, not because everything needs a profit margin or a practical use case. You're looking at this like it's an investment portfolio when it's literally just someone making books for fun. Yeah you can buy a notebook at Target for 3 bucks but that misses the whole point of making something yourself. And the clutter argument kinda falls apart when you realize they probably gave most of them away or use them. Not everything has to be a side hustle.