Hand-Embroidered Notebooks Are Almost Too Pretty to Use

Craft & Design Yarncraft
Hand-Embroidered Notebooks Are Almost Too Pretty to Use
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

[via This Is Colossal]

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Sophia is the managing editor of the Make: blog. When she’s not greasing editorial gears, she likes to run, ride, climb, and lift things, and make lo-tech goods like zines, desserts, and altered clothing. @sophiuhcamille

View more articles by Sophia Smith

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