Hand-Embroidered Notebooks Are Almost Too Pretty to Use

geometric — Photos Courtesy of Fabulous Cat

I have long been a lover of analog note-taking and all things paper and pen. Few things are as satisfying to me as customizing a journal and filling up the pages day by day; few things are as grounding and nostalgic as flipping through a completed journal, its scribbles and clippings acting as a bona fide time machine.

Greece-based Maker and Etsy store operator Chara, aka Fabulous Cat, clearly shares my obsession with notebooks. Her hand-embroidered notebooks are true works of art worthy of framing. Even the binding is unconventially eye-catching. They’re almost so beautiful that I might feel guilty using one as a daily journal, since mine usually look a little worse for wear after traipsing around with me for days on end.

Fabulous Cat’s designs range from geometric to anatomical and organic. She says,

In these times of all things virtual, I invite you to a totally physical experience: to feel the paper grain and the 3D effect created by simple cotton threads, to acknowledge or remember the pleasure of writing on it with a simple pencil.

As she demonstrates on her Etsy store, the process appears to be fairly simple. She starts with either a blank cover, or one printed with a simple base design. In both cases she then proceeds to use a small bodkin to poke little holes across the cover. Then it’s just a matter of embroidering the design to fill in the cover, rendering a truly vibrant and dynamic effect.

If you want to take a stab at recreating this project, all you need is a notebook or paper, a bodkin, a needle, and some thread. If you’re as artistically challenged as I am, a reference image would also be helpful.

To see more of Fabulous Cat’s creations, check out the gallery below as well as her Facebook page and Etsy shop.