Testimonials

"Katie at linenlaid&felt has been a dream to work with for custom items. I have placed three orders, all for her handbound books. Each arrived safely wrapped, timely and each was impeccable. If you have a concept in mind, be sure to share it with Katie. I was amazed at what she was able to dream up based on a few off-hand thoughts I gave. Her work is beautiful and the books all made lovely, unique gifts for special occasions. I look forward to working with Katie again."
- Emma, from Minnesota


"Linenlaid&felt made the guestbook of my dreams! It seriously came out amazing. I basically just rambled aimlessly about what my dream guestbook would be and somehow she captured it and made it a reality! It's amazing!"
- Leah, from New Jersey


"Katie was wonderful to work with; our several back-and-forth exchanges always resulted in a better match for my needs. It was as if she could read my mind. Perhaps more importantly, the book she made was gorgeous, looking handmade yet precisely constructed."
- Jennifer, from New York


"Katie created a beautiful hand-made guest book for our wedding. She and I emailed back and forth until we decided on a design and I had the finished product in my hands in less time than was even proposed! I do not view myself as a particularly sentimental person, but the book that Katie created for me will stay with me forever. Not only do I love the book, I also loved working with Katie--she seems like one of the nicest persons around." 
- Jaclyn, from Illinois


"We have always wanted to journal for the girls and have never gotten started. I can't tell you how much I appreciate these. I know that years from now these books will be so special to the girls and to myself. Thank you, thank you. What a neat and creative gift."
- Carolyn, from Georgia


Click here to view more feedback from my customers on Etsy.

FAQ


Where did you learn bookmaking?
I first studied book arts and papermaking in 2006 in Cortona, Italy (pictured above) through a University of Georgia study abroad program. I merge my graphic design and fine art background into my work, and enjoy blending contemporary aesthetic with traditional techniques.

What inspired the name linenlaid&felt?
I've always had an attention to detail, so when it comes to the world of books, the papers I use are a top consideration. Texture gives each paper its unique fingerprint. It's what sets two seemingly similar cream sheets apart. Paper has many textures, including the namesakes for my business: linen, laid, and felt. Linen paper is embossed to resemble linen cloth. Laid paper is distinguished by a texture reminiscent of handmade paper with lines impressed by papermaking molds. Felt paper features a finish applied with felts for a distinctive weave.

What can I do with a handbound book?
In a tech-savvy time, many people I meet at art shows ask this question with a sense of wonderment. My answer usually begins with journals, but extends to include many other options. A handmade book can be a sketchbook, baby book, wedding guest book, photo album, scrapbook, gardening journal, travel journal, address book, birthday book, day planner, or artistic display.

Did you really make the entire book?
The answer is yes. I do not use any kits or prefabricated materials. Everything is done by hand. I cut, tear, fold, glue, and sew everything myself to create one-of-a-kind books.

From fabric to metal


Last week I shared a few of the handmade Christmas gifts that I gave to friends and family, and now I'd like to share a few that I received.

My husband's family gave me this fabric flower hair clip made by Esty seller PetalMix. All of the petals were cut and hand-folded from beautiful pieces of dupioni silk (my all-time favorite type of fabric), and the flower is completed with a cluster of glass pearls in the center. Petal Mix hair accessories and brooch pins are a modern twist on the Japanese art of tsumami kanzashi.


The earrings above, made by Jayme Driver, were a Christmas gift from my husband. I first met Jayme at Art in the Park last spring, where we made a trade: I gave her one of my handbound photo albums and she gave me the earrings below.

Jayme and I met up again when we were both exhibiting at the Fall Foliage Festival in October. When visiting her booth, I noticed a new pair of earrings that really caught my eye. She must have mentioned this to Tony later that day because I was both surprised and thrilled to find them under the tree on Christmas Day. These two pairs of earrings have quickly become the favorites in my collection and the go-to pieces that I wear several times a week.



Make your own books!

Interested in learning bookmaking? Your chance has arrived. My first class at Shenandoah Valley Art Center, in Waynesboro, VA will meet on back-to-back Saturdays at the end of the month. I'll be teaching an introduction to bookmaking -- no experience required -- in which you'll learn multiple book structures, ranging from simple stitched books and accordion folds to more involved journals with hundreds of pages. The cost is $70 for SVAC members and $90 for non-members. For more information call the art center at (540) 949-7662 or visit their website. Sign up today, as class space is limited!


Two-day Intro to Bookbinding Workshop
When: Saturday, January 22 and Saturday, January 29; 1-4 p.m.
Where: Shenandoah Valley Art Center, 126 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro, VA

Inspired by the invitations


Before I begin sharing all of the custom order books I made for the holidays, I want to share a few other books that I completed in 2010. I've had the honor to work on quite a few wedding guest books and photo albums since founding linenlaid&felt (and even a few before then). It is really special for me to be able to create a book for such a monumental life event, and to make something that will likely become a keepsake for years to come.


This album was commissioned by Ryan, a former co-worker of mine, who gave the book to two of his friends as a wedding gift. The design of the book was heavily influenced by the couple's wedding printed materials. When Ryan placed his order, he gave me a copy of their invitation, which I brought with me while shopping in order to perfectly match the shades of pink and green when purchasing paper.


The couple's names and pink patterned paper in the recessed nameplate on the cover actually came directly from the wedding invitation. For my custom orders, I usually design and print the label for the cover myself, but in this case I really liked being able to use a portion of the invitation to personalize the book. The book itself is classic and fairly understated, but the pop of the bright pink pattern adds just the right amount of excitement. Plus, I think it will make the book an even more memorable keepsake.

A Handmade Christmas


2010 was my first year as an Etsy seller, and in addition to running my own shop I also spent plenty of time purusing the shops of many other talented Etsy sellers. Throughout the year I discovered so many unique handmade items unlike any I'd ever seen before. I was itching to share them with the people I care about, so it was an easy decision to do most of my Christmas shopping on Etsy. Now that all of the gifts have been opened by their new recipients, I want to share some of the handmade items.

I bought two lovely pieces of jewelry from TeakaAndZoe, the turquoise earrings for my grandmother and the orange necklace for a friend of mine. I love all of the bright colors in the shop (and I hope to someday add one of these pairs of flower-shaped earrings to my own collection: in red/teal or in lime/turquoise).

The garden markers, made from hammered vintage spoons, were a gift for my mom. She's an exceptional gardener. And the Midwest seed bombs were a gift for my mother-in-law who lives in Illinois and who also enjoys spending time in her garden. The "bombs" are actually little balls formed of wildflower seeds mixed with clay. You just throw 'em and grow 'em (and add a little water too).

5. OhYum :: Sampler of homemade marshmallows

I also ordered several food items from Etsy sellers for the first time this holiday season. The best one was by far the homemade marshmallows made by OhYum! I ordered these to bring to my family's house to share with everyone for the holidays. My sampler pack included eight flavors: pistachio, lemon, cherry, chocolate, coconut, orange, vanilla, and almond. After tasting them all, the cherry and orange were my favorites. I will certainly be a repeat customer of OhYum!

I picked out a popcorn spice kit for my husband, including unique flavors like beer, southwest jalapeno, chocolate caramel, and dill pickle. We tested a few of them out at our New Year's party, and they were a hit. Also for my husband, I ordered some unique bacon treats: candied chipotle bacon, and then a sampler pack of other types of candied and chocolate-covered bacon. So far, we've just tried the candied chipotle flavor (very tasty!), and I'm sure the others will be interesting.

And continuing with the bacon theme, my husband and I selected a bacon tie for our bacon-loving and fashionable friend. If you've never visited ToyBreaker's Etsy shop, do it now! It's packed with clever and edgy neckties, bowties, and scarves, and I picked out three of them a few years back as a wedding present for my husband.

10. LinenLaidFelt :: Handbound photo album

One of the hightlights of this handmade giftgiving was surprising my husband with this baseball card book made by erinzam. We're both really big fans of her work (see my previous post about her here). The covers of this book are made from a vintage, 1955 Bowman baseball card of Willard Marshall of the Chicago White Sox. My husband loves baseball, and is a huge White Sox fan. And coincidentally on our drive down to South Carolina before Christmas, he was talking about baseball cards, and specifically the 1955 Bowman cards that show the player surrounded in a television-like frame. I love the assortment of different papers used for the pages, and the baseball seam stitching style is especially clever. I ordered this gift in June, and I've been waiting anxiously for Christmas so I could give it to Tony.

One of the handmade gifts I gave this year was one that I made myself. My dad has become intersted in photography these past few years since moving to Charleston, SC and each time I come to visit he has a new stack of photos to show. So I decided to make him a handbound photo album for Christmas so he'd have a more elegant way to store and display his pictures (rather than the cardstock envelopes from the photo store). I'll be posting more photos of this book in a future blog post, but here's a sneak peek for now.

And last but not least, my husband picked out a faux-taxidermy creation for his younger brother. His brother's Christmas wishlist included a few books, CDs, and movies, but at the end he listed "something weird for my room." Of course Tony couldn't resist this challenge, and turned to the "everything else" and "weird" categories on Etsy to find this little critter.

Happy New Year!


Last month I finished a custom wedding guest book for a couple who tied the knot yesterday, on News Year's Day. What a way to start off a new year! Congratulations to Caroline and Greg.


Their wedding guest book features plenty of shimmering gold details set off against soft cream pages and thread -- perfectly delicate and celebratory for a winter wedding. The paper used for the cover was handmade in Nepal and is printed with a contemporary chrysanthemum pattern.

I'm also pleased with how these photos came out, so I've included a few more than usual. Enjoy!





A head start
Just before the new year, on a lengthy car ride, my husband and I had the chance to talk about goals for the upcoming year for linenlaid&felt. I was so encouraged that I got a head start on one of them.

The goal was to complete at least 20 books per month to keep my Etsy shop stocked with new items while still being able to supply the local shops that sell my work. Before the ball even dropped on New Year's Eve, I had pages for 25 books awaiting covers and binding. And I feel great about it.

Moving forward
In addition to making lots more books, I'll be teaching a beginning bookbinding class at a local art center near the end of the month, and displaying my work and information about the bookmaking process at a library nearby.

In the studio, I'm working on more books with printed pages, including lined journals, baby books, and garden journals. Thanks to a Christmas gift from my husband and my grandparents, I'm the proud owner of four volumes of Keith Smith's comprehensive binding instruction books. So I expect to be experimenting with new binding styles and sculptural structures.

Rendezvous at the Wawa


When working on custom books for specific events, I find it interesting to see which elements ultimately propel the design in a certain direction.

For this wedding guest book, Jessica started out open to suggestions. She worried that she wasn't being specific enough in her preferences. But it only took a couple of key decisions for us to solidify an idea: Jessica asked for eco-friendly materials and a specific color scheme.

I knew right away that Lokta paper would be a good choice to meet both goals. It is available in lots of bold colors, created with organic dyes, that allowed me to pick a bright yellow and a royal blue. Jessica had identified these colors as appropriate for her beach wedding, representing the sun and the sea.

Lokta paper, handmade in Nepal, is also sustainable. Instead of using trees, the paper is made from Daphne plant fibers and harvested in such a way to promote further growth of the plant. These standards go hand in hand with the paper's quality as a strong and acid-free material for bookbinding.


Jessica also knew she needed a quick turnaround so the book could be used for events leading up to the wedding, in addition to the big day. I've found myself encouraging other brides to follow Jessica's idea in using my wedding guest books to record messages from friends and family at engagement parties, bridal showers, and other wedding-related events.

To be married in October, Jessica ordered June 1. A week later, my husband was en route to Richmond with the book. Already scheduled to pick up a friend at the airport there, it was easy for him to deliver the book to Jessica at a corner Wawa convenient store near the airport. Although Jessica shopped in the global marketplace that is Etsy, she benefited by finding me, just an hour and a half to the west.

The Borders Within

This past Sunday, the newspaper where my husband and I work published a special report called The Borders Within. For my husband Tony and our good friend Chase Purdy it was the culmination of a year's worth of reporting about the growing Hispanic population in our town.

And for me, it marked the end of an incredibly busy week spent designing the six-page section. This is undoubtedly the project I am post proud of during my two years designing for The News Virginian. I'm also quite proud of the work that Tony and Chase completed with their reporting which makes this even more meaningful to me. I don't often share my graphic design work on this blog, but I wanted to make an exception for this particular project.

Click on any of the images for a closer look at the design, or view a pdf of the full section here.


One aspect of the design that came together even better than I'd expected was the map on page two. I created a map of our small town, and used it to plot different points of significance to Waynesboro's Hispanic community, like the a church offering weekly services in Spanish and a park where many people -- including former Mexican professional league players -- play fútbol. Local and regional statistics surround the map to complete the infographic.




Everything for this section was completed by Tony, Chase, and me. Reporting, writing, photography, design -- we did it all. So we all feel a real sense of ownership about this section. The photos that Tony and Chase took turned out so well, and they drive the design for the section. I was able to use a variety of large dominant photos and truly give a face to this community that is often overlooked.




We were also all excited to see that our section had been featured on Charles Apple's The Visual Side of Journalism blog. Charles had many complimentary things to say about The Borders Within, and specifically appreciated the visual appeal of the infographics, and the design of the section overall. Reading his post truly made my day, and was ceretianly a highlight after such a hectic week (and weekend) preparing for the section's publication.




And here's a bit more about the section, in Tony's words:

At its most basic, the idea behind the reporting in this section is not new. Like many reporters, we chose to explore an unfamiliar immigrant community and one that struggles with a language barrier.

But we thought we could deliver something meaningful to readers by bringing our curiosity to Waynesboro’s Hispanic community in particular — a community nestled into a small town and one that still remembers the first who came from Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, and elsewhere. They remember because those pioneers arrived not so long ago.

Because of the short time these families have lived here, we find them on the cusp of transition. As that population meets more frequently with the broader community, those unfamiliar words and nameless faces become harder to ignore, or to refuse to understand. Their needs have grown. Their successes are mounting.

We chose to approach in Spanish whenever possible, no matter how much we’d stumble. We focused on people, not politics, and the ordinary as often as the extreme.

This project first arose in fall 2009, but it might not have started without an unsolicited call and a soft threat. The caller told us to feature Kim Romero’s struggle to bring her husband Rigo back from Mexico, where he’d become mired in immigration bureaucracy. If we wouldn’t write the story, some other reporter would, the caller said.

The Romeros’ story turned from one chapter to the next just after midnight Sept. 10, when Rigo came legally into Kim’s arms at Dulles International Airport. We were there. Rigo has since gained residency through 2020.

Their story isn’t over. Nor is our work.

Tony and Chase had already won the International Perspectives award from the Associated Press Managing Editors contest for their coverage of the Romeros earlier this year, and I think that is just the beginning for the recognition they will receive for their work. Read all of the articles in The Borders Within series here.

Elegant album for wedding memories


I'm taking a break amid the holiday rush to share a few more custom orders I completed this fall. This photo album was given as a wedding gift by Emma, one of my best customers. (She also ordered this photo album for her cousin, and this journal for a friend.)


Emma is often hands-on with the initial design process for her orders, which I enjoy because it's fun for me to see someone who is as excited about books as I am. She scoured the Paper Mojo website to find this red and gold Japanese paper for the cover. From there, I selected the cream bookcloth for the spine and the gold accents for the endsheets, giving the book an extra-special gleam. And once I had determined that the book needed to be bound with gold thread to complete the elegant look, I couldn't let the idea go until I had found the perfect option.


Emma was very pleased with the way this album turned out, and told me that the couple loved it as well. She even had them open the gift at the end of their wedding reception so they could see it right away. I hope Kathlyn and Leland enjoy filling this book with photos and memories of their married life together.