Thornwillow letterpress is so good you'll hang up the phone on your husband too

I was talking on the phone to my husband late last night (he's in business school in Philadelphia right now), and absentmindedly clicking through sites for decorative papers at the same time. Clicking onto Thornwillow, I suddenly stopped, unable to talk. I started to stutter. "Oh my! oh my!" I gasped. "I'm looking at a letterpress online that is really good. No: I mean, Really Good! Let's talk later! Bye!"

Check out a sampling of the custom monograms they offer-- almost as nuanced and as unusual as those offered by Leontine Linens...



The great thing about Thornwillow Press (other than the fact that Cynthia Kling, the woman who gave Domino the name "Domino," has praised them to the high heavens in Vanity Fair's July 2009 ed, I discovered today) is that they balance a lot of tricky extremes.

a) They do the "Letterpress Is Posh" thing oh so effortlessly... (love that lion like nobody's business)

b) They do the wry, tongue-in-cheek, ironic, "Letterpress can be Naughty" thing well too....(love their "spanking babies" set of note cards)...


c) & then, best of all, they do lots of OTHER things too-- charming things that are actually charming, (vs the too-gooey, the too-treacly, the too-sweet). I guess the best way to describe Thornwillow is that they seem to have been designed by someone who lives in a Sempé cartoon, and whose life is half-lived in tails, giving toasts--


and the other half, lived at the circus--


or in dreamy, teetering castles of books, shared with friends, in the air.

a view from the milky way: our invites

ahhhh! our starry invites are out... this is part of the image that inspired the verso of the cards, in midnight card stock with pewter metallic ink. true to form, the über-talented elisabeth did an incredible job, as did our fabulous calligrapher.

and silk felt soil has come full circle-- asa smith's astronomy, from which the image is taken, was merely a gleam in our eye when we started; I lucked out, found the entire book on ebay, have been saving it ever since for something really special.

Strike! Strike! er.... Ork! Ork!

I know it's looking like I've left the scene, everyone, but really my absence from silk felt soil has been carefully and ethically considered: in solidarity with my fellow writers in Los Angeles and New York, I have been on strike from sfs.

;)



But I can't help myself: I must give thanks to Ork Posters for their to-die-for regional poster. (and to Lisa Congdon who spotlighted them today at d*s's guest blog). Cannot wait for the Boston one: I'm all signed up.






................... -> note: After Thanksgiving, I'll be holding a Christmas ...................blogger's swap for charity! s t a y t u n e d

monogrammed linens....

Monograms are by definition totally kitsch, no? Most of the time, they look copy-cutter, completely un-ironic, which can be a bit scary! Finding an unusual monogram, on the other hand, makes a bed-set become something truly eccentric and wonderful. Leontine Linens, based in New Orleans, has some of the most unusual, unique, splendid, overscale monograms I've ever seen. With names like "Baron." "Monarch." (Such a fun wedding present!) ... Somehow I get the feeling Nick Olsen would dig these.


The masculine "Joseph" and "Claude..." from the Baron collection.





And the more refined "Helena 2" from the Monarch collection, and "Jules," & "Trey" from the Directoire collection.





Have a languid, relaxing Memorial Day weekend, all! & see you back on Tuesday with some musings about the wedding!

pattern: oversized dots and oblongs in silky neutrals

o . O o . O o . o O . 0 0o O o . o O0 oblongs

Joy's nantaka joy line is out and it's too delicious....! (image via d*s). was so inspired, i had to show a sample of other gorgeous oval and oblong patterns in textiles and ceramics.

Embroidered tambourine fabric by Minä perhonen via photos from IdN spotted on Elly's site.


brooch by scottish artist Ann Little.


"Martini" runner by madeline weinrib

beloved Arabia: Finland giraffes found here.

mat daly and phaidon's vitamin D (d for drawing)

Warm thanks to la belle Mav for calling attention to Mat Daly's fantastic graphic work. (See here for Lena's faves). Mat, if you're reading this: I think you should do covers for the New Yorker... I think they'd love your stuff.



This diagram/mind-map poster reminds me of the gorgeous dust jacket of Phaidon's "Vitamin D" book.

recycled design, etsy-style: envelopes that play with scale

An Etsy shop, Bellis Celebrations, gives PR mailings a second life:

"I'm a graphic designer and some of the paper promotions and stock photography brochures I get are just beautiful. Too beautiful, I just can't bring myself to throw them away."



I love the hugeness of the Q-Tips and the precariousness of the window-washer...

Each set of envelopes around $2 here. Or, make your own. Just recently, I made some envelope liners using images from an old New Yorker; it was fun to give a small, unexpected jolt to the inside of a plain envelope, like La Perla under jeans!

recycled design: letterpress table and weathered mirror

Welcome back everyone! hope you had a great Thanksgiving! We had some friends up from Philly and Northern California, and it was so much fun.




Gorgeous use of recycled materials from The Inspired Maker.


This whole week I'll be focusing on recycled materials! I'd love to hear what your favorite recycled designs are, so comment away, or send me an email!

dazzling sculptural paper jewelry by dutch artist nel linssen

I think Nel Linssen's work speaks for itself. If you haven't heard of her and would like to know more (she's completely new to me but at least I've found her now!), her beautiful website is one place to see more of her jewelry, and this appetite-whetting series of books, Textile Arts of the World, features her in their book on the Netherlands.

a treat: business cards from the Black Pearl Press

Soooo excited: my main man decided to give me some business cards for my upcoming birthday, and so this past week I had a glorious time picking a local letterpress to work with. After many tantalizing options, such as Dear Olive and The Goosefish Press, I finally settled on Elisabeth's Boston-based Black Pearl Press...
When the cards are done, I'll share them... and for now, here's some examples of Elisabeth's impeccable work. mmmmm!




note: her website is being updated and should be up and running later today...

letterpress: a little rant.

Peter Koch's letterpress work, especially his ephemera, is so. damn. fine.



Here's the thing.

I like rough, mad, brazen letterpress. I like my letterpress single-malt, straight up. I like it with lots of typeface-- really amazing, old-school typeface. and I like it used, splotchy, like it's been somewhere. I don't want it pristine. I don't want it pretty. I don't want it cutesy retro. I want it unapologetically regressive, so out-of-date that it's not. I want it devil-may-care, with fire in its belly.


Typographical Horse, designed and printed by Christopher Stern, of the WA-based letterpress Stern & Faye.

Philatelic Feud - "Fish with Legs"?

How gorgeous are these contentious Hawaiian Missionary Stamps?

(According to today's NY Times, the London and the American Philatelic Societies are in conflict about whether these 19th c. Hawaiian missionary stamps are forgeries or the genuine article. Apparently they are something of a "missing link" in the stamp world, hence the "fish with legs" comment by a Mr. Sundman.)

[image courtesy of Vincent and Carol Arrigo, via The New York Times, August 18, 2006.]