Man I gotta push back on that. You got lucky the digital level caught that tilt but honestly if you really know what you're looking at with a bubble level you can spot that stuff anyway. Sounds more like you got comfortable and stopped paying attention to the ground before you set up.

I mean, idk, I feel like leather palm guards are just gonna make your grip worse in the long run. Maybe it's just me but I think you lose that direct feel for the tool, you know? Like you're supposed to build up some calluses and learn the right technique, not just slap on extra gear. I get why people use em, but I'd rather just tough it out and get my hands used to the work.

Guess that's just how it goes with anything where you're dealing with living things. I've noticed the same thing with my sourdough starter, people overthink it and sanitize everything to death but then someone else just leaves their jar on the counter with a loose lid and their bread turns out perfect. Reminds me of how I used to stress about washing my cast iron pan just right until I saw a buddy scrub his with soap and water and dry it on the stove. Thing's still going strong years later. Some of it's just about not being too precious with the process, and some of it's luck.

Floral foam kills the environment though.

My 14th book was the one that taught me about grain direction. I had no idea paper had a grain until I pressed a whole batch of endpapers that looked like crumpled maps later. But the number nobody talks about is book 3. That was the one where I discovered the hard way that PVA glue will soak through thin bookcloth like coffee through a napkin. Those early mistakes are the real milestones because they stay with you. The big round numbers just mean you survived long enough to get the basics down.