Hit 100 books bound this year and I honestly thought it would feel different

I got into binding as a hobby back in February. Picked up some used tools on FB marketplace and just started messing around with old paperbacks. Set a goal of 100 books by December figuring it would be a nice round number to aim for. Hit that mark last Tuesday with a rebind of a beat up copy of Dune my buddy gave me. And honestly? I thought I'd feel more accomplished or something. Instead I just felt tired and realized half of those books I rushed through and the quality shows. My coptic stitch bindings from July look way better than the ones I did in November. Makes me wonder if chasing numbers takes away from actually caring about each project. Any of you ever hit a milestone and realize it didn't mean as much as you thought it would?

2 comments

2 Comments

oliviapatel1mo ago

Yeah I hit 50 journals last year and half of them were slapdash jobs I'd never show anyone now. The number can trick you into thinking you are making progress when really you are just making more work for future you to fix.

lucas_carr241mo ago

Man that really hits home. I think the whole "wow I got numbers" feeling fades fast once you actually look back at the work you put out. So here's my question for you - now that you hit 100 and know the quality dropped off, are you gonna slow down and redo some of those rush jobs or just move on and try to do better going forward? Because I feel like that's the real test of whether you learned something from this. Its easy to say "I'll do better next time" but another thing to actually go back and fix your mistakes.