Adventures with the Scout Plein Air Box

In the beginning of September, I (Walter) felt the call of adventure, packed my Scout Plein Air Box and art supplies, a few changes of clothes and set out – this time a little further from home. An early morning Uber drive, two plane rides across the country, and a 4-hour van trip later, I found myself in the high country of Yosemite National Park, with a 50 lb pack on my back accompanied by three fellow adventurers and our guide. We were on a 5-day hike into the wilderness to escape the crowds of people and the endless demands of our busy lives, to camp under millions of stars that illuminated the night sky, to swim in the refreshingly freezing lakes fed by melting snow, to climb Vogelsang Peak, and for me to plein air paint.

Finding a nice spot to paint

Vogelsang is the one on the left

Painting by Fletcher Lake

The sunrise

A journal entry during the trip

I saw a bear yesterday! We were sitting drinking coffee and in the distant clearing a bear was moseying up the hill towards the lake. I burst out, “There’s a bear, there’s a bear!” We all jumped up and followed him. For a moment we lost him in the brush and when we got to the lake, he had somehow crossed from the left side of us to the right and he was super close! Preoccupied with breakfast, his head was down in the water. Occasionally he popped up with a mouthful of small fish. Chomping away, he looked around slowly then got back to snacking. When the water hole no longer proved satisfactory to his appetite, he turned away from us and went further into the reeds. We could see the tops of the tall grass shaking and hear the water splashing. He seemed to be having a grand time!

After breakfast we packed our day bags. With a few snacks, a rain jacket, and my paint box, I was ready. We set out through the meadow over a creek and began to climb a winding trail up to Vogelsang Lake. After a quick swim, we continued the trek to Vogelsang Summit. The going was steady but gradually slowed as the path steepened. When we reached the pass, we transitioned into rock scrambling. Loose gravel made for unsteady steps, and I stuck to boulder hopping, avoiding the gravely path as much as possible. On the final ascent we trail blazed through thick low piney brush. We bushwhacked our way up, intermittently discovering a patch of bare rock only to lose it again under the gnarly needled thicket.

The last few feet we had to hoist ourselves up onto rock ledges using the cracks as holds. As we scrambled up the final rock the world opened around us. Below lay a vast array of granite peaks dotted with ice melt lakes. The pine trees stitched each mountain together and the range went on as far as our eyes could see, disappearing into the hazy horizon. We could see Half Dome jutting up from the rest, completely bald, a formidable hunk of granite! We sat up on that razor edge ridge for a while and I attempted to capture the land below with my paints, brushes and canvas. During the descent we stopped at Vogelsang Lake for a late lunch and an invigorating swim before heading back to camp. What a day! How amazing life can be!

Rock scrambling

Painting atop Vogelsang

Leaving Vogelsang Summit

The Bear!

Vogelsang Lake in the distance

First painting of the trip

Right outside my tent

Goodnight!

Coming Soon: Postcards and Prints of the Yosemite National Park Plein Air Paintings!

Toulomne Meadows

Vogelsang Summit

Fletcher Lake

The view from my tent

The Scout Plein Air Box: A Backstory

The Scout Plein Air Box was inspired by our endeavor to make art every day. Each one is handmade in our West Chester, Pennsylvania workshop. It compactly secures all of your essential art supplies for painting outdoors. Fill your box with your favorite colors, paintbrushes, and sketchbook. Find your spot and quickly transform the box into a mini studio. Set it on a flat surface or mount it on a tripod, snap the liquid jars, brush holder, and easel in place, clip on your canvas and you are ready to paint. Read our earlier blog post for more of the Scout's story, or dig into its features and uses with our video walkthrough!

 

Truffle, Old Truffle (used!*), Hickory, Spice, Spice (lightly used) *our first Sendak! I’ve been using it since 2016

All About Our Canvas and Colours!

Waxed Canvas is a cotton canvas with wax embedded into the fibers. The wax darkens the colour of the textile, and makes it water resistant, giving it protection from the elements. It also shows marks of use, giving it the charming rugged look that we were drawn to fifteen years ago when we started Peg and Awl, and continue to love as we use it throughout the years!

We have been compiling the most frequently asked questions about waxed canvas. We’ve included photographs to illustrate our answers, especially with colour!

What Are The Marks On My Bag? Waxed canvas looks cozy and worn in from the start, because of the crazing – the creases and marks – that show up with use. Some colours are craze-ier than others! The Coal is the least mark prone, and shows the most dust and pet hair in the beginning, but with use, as with all the colours, the wax works its way into the cotton fibers, protecting it from the elements, including pet hair.

Can You Make a Sendak In _____? We use two different canvas weights – one for the Sendak and another for our Bags. The Sendak canvas is thinner and lighter because of all of the layers and intricacies of the artist roll. Some limited colours are only available in one weight. This is why we may introduce a colour in Bags that we don’t offer in Sendaks, and vice versa.

Why is this Canvas Softer that the Others? Most of our canvas comes from Fairfield Textile, and the waxiness is fairly consistent, but we love finding new colours and new manufacturers, so there can be variation in the canvases. Sweetshrub, Radish, and Rook are all a little softer and waxier than the others at first, but again, all wax works its way into the fibers with use.

Why Is The Colour Different? The wax reflects lighting differently so the range of tone in the photographs reflects the range of tone you may perceive in life. The colours may vary slightly from batch to batch because they are hand dyed. The wax will fade with use and the colour of the bag will lighten and evolve. We love all of this. Your bags will change through use, giving each one a one-of-a-kind patina with the stories and marks from your life!

Cool: Fog, Slate, Coal Colour Comparison

Warm: Truffle, Spice, Hickory Colour Comparison

Waxed Canvas Swatch Books!

We use two different canvas weights for our Sendaks and Bags. The Sendak canvas is thinner and lighter. The colours vary between the weights, and sometimes we cannot find the same colour in both, and sometimes, the 'same' colour isn’t the same at all — as in the case of Sweetshrub (Sendak) and Sumac (Bags). They are close, but the canvas weight and wax makes the colour different enough that we decided to give them different names. 

Bag Canvas Classic Colours

Bag Canvas Small Batch Colours

Sendak Canvas Classic Colours

Sendak Canvas Classic Colours

Sumac (Left) and Sweetshrub (Right) Colour Comparison

Our Leather

We use black and brown vegetable-tanned leather from Wickett and Craig for our bags and Sendaks. Fog and All Black are paired with black leather and all other colours are paired with brown leather.

We can do any leather and canvas combination that you wish! Just email us or write your request in your order notes. Please note, these are considered special orders and are not returnable.

August marks a full year for Peg and Awl in the barn at the Five Acre Wood in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and we just had our third studio tour. Each one sees wild change as the space evolves, but I hope settling in doesn’t stop that!

This year Walter showed his “Crossing the North Sea” paintings, which we will share in detail soon. Søren showed parts of many projects he’s been working on this past year, he debuted stickers which will be available for sale through his IG. Silas shared some pen and ink portraits and opened up commissions — his first will be a parrot named Loki! And I shared Shimmera, work from my poetry project, in side an old Post Office Station.

In addition to all of this, Peg and Awl treasures were fully stocked, and we shared some new experiments in colour. And we brought in some of our favourite art supplies from makers around the world. We will be expanding on these offerings, though most will be available for in-store purchase, we will be offering some online as we can!

Beam Paints were much loved during the tour as visitors got to play with all of the colours at our Risko Table from Art Graf! We will be bringing more of their colours in, including their new mineral palette, some new — not-yet-launched colours — and we will be working on some long-dreamed of collaborations!	I’ve been using Noodler’s Ink for years – Catfish Black – but have been intimidated by the options! We ordered a variety of inks and I was lost in the swatching. I’ll share more on this in the future as well.

A Rural Pen Ink, ever a favourite. Restocked in our storefront and our online shop!	After reading Breath by James Nester I took up chewing gum again! I do not like chewing plastic (most gums – even those found in my favourite local makets – are made of a plastic gum base.) When I found Refresh last winter whilst visiting New England, I found my gum! I found an old Necco Wafer store display at a Flea Market and couldn’t resist filling it with Refresh.

Ever a Flea-Marketer, I’ve been gathering vintage and antique art supplies and am working out ways to share the treasures both online and in our shop. [Below]

Vintage Pens! We have a variety in our store front and will share them on our website from time to time with our of a kinds. Sign up for our newsletter for the announcement!	Vintage Pencils

I have been loving Art Graf for years, and was thrilled to meet Jose and Patrice in New Orleans in April! We brought in a lot of their goodies including a Risko desk — the new demo area in the shop! Photograph by Emma of Skippy Cotton loving the Graphite Powder	Penco tape dispensers are perfect for washi tape and are in use at our work stations and available in the shop!

A corner in progress!	Søren doodling with Noodlers!

A close-up of the community art project, the result of art supply testing!	Our old general store filled with new Peg and Awl treasures!

Walters well-worn Scout and some new colour adventures! Pine and Wineberry (maybe, or help us name!)	My Marigold Finch. Marigold, our most recent small batch colour!

Every adventure we embark upon opens our world and our yearning for more. With that, the things we make broaden too, and how we use them – all is ongoing and interconnected. Everything blooms from everything.

In 2017, we began our search for sustainable leather, starting in the UK. We drove along narrow and winding roads of the countryside, enveloped in greenery. We were greeted and enchanted by the Tannery Cat, who showed us around the 500-year-old tannery nestled along a river. All was luminous in the glowing light – like the light after a storm. The cat paused mid-tour, to devour a headless rabbit that he had hidden under a car for later – now, the later.

He finished supper and we continued our wandering through whitewashed buildings full of old machinery, piles of tanned bellies, well-worn wooden what’s-its, and a large pool of oak bark soup with hides draped in rows for a long soak. Everything is worn and weathered, like the paths along the edges of farmlands; the stiles polished smooth and shiny from centuries of passers-by.

Whilst there, we were able to procure some organic animal hides from local Devonshire farms. These special requests, we were told, bore the marks of the animal’s lives lived outdoors — evidence of small battles, bug-swatting, and fence run-ins — things most people don’t prefer to see in their new leather. But this is all part of the story.

The leather took a long time travelling to Pennsylvania, and when it made it, we held onto it, savouring it for seven years. We have finally transformed it into something new — our Crow’s Feet Journals — made to house new adventures and layers of life’s patina!

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On This Same UK Adventure...

I have a recurring dream in which I am sucked into a body of water with my journal; I flop around in the water – my journal just out of reach. Yesterday, when Søren and Silas’s eyes lit up at the prospect of venturing down the algae-covered steps to the Thames, one would have expected warning signals to ignite my brain, struck with horror from my dream. The warnings came, but not on my behalf. I warned the boys to take the skinny, dry path – to avoid the slippy algae and save themselves from the off color and smell of an unexpected dip in the Thames. They carried on as originally planned, and I proceeded to greedily take photographs and videos of their adventure down the slippy, algae side. Losing my feet from underneath me, I went down fast and uncontrollably! 

All I could think of were my dreams, and the journal in my backpack as I flew down. I dug my nails into the green muck, trying to stop my momentum. I could hear Silas screaming, horrified, in the background. Turns out, I pressed record as I fell, my phone capturing the Blair Witch-Like audio that had us all in stitches afterwards. As it goes, spread out like a starfish, I didn’t make it into the Thames that day; I stopped my descent and rose up, green with algae – nails broken and knuckled bloodied, laughing my hearty laugh for the unexpected.

...	...

Time moves. Spring has begun its magical decent into the five-acre wood. This is our sixth spring here, and I’ve been enjoying digging in the dirt nearly daily throughout the year, slowly moving through every inch of the land. Most of my work has been ungardening, which allows me to sweat and think and grow stronger. It is the gardening that I am afraid of — what to put where and how! I do not envision (I may not have this skill at all), I just move. But the land no longer wears its thorny drapery and untraversable barbed bushes, and when Pearl steps outside, she doesn’t return with dozens of ticks and sometimes she returns with none — a remarkable transformation!

Last winter, Amy, a gardener friend, shared some insight which has made the land this spring, not just an undoing project, but a transformative one for me, the pollinators, and the passers-by. Small spring ephemerals are blooming all around, though the deer and geese are munching them at an irritating pace.

May Apple Rhizome	May Apple Plant!

Søren’s May Apple Specimen Card	Søren’s Jack-in-the-Pulpit Specimen Card!

Jack-in-the-Pulpit Corm	Jack-in-the-Pulpit Plant

Plant Pirate! Flower Bandit!

I discovered an acre of Snowdrops and Winter Aconite when trees were cut down for another Wawa in the area, and filled my truck with plants. When I went back and tried 'the right" way, (I asked), the plants were destroyed within a week.

I know better than to ask. Why did I falter?

Snowdrops and Winter Aconite at a new Wawa site.

Toots and Yedda have been returning to Pond Island for 6 years! We’ve seen them thrive and struggle year after year. So far, their 5 goslings are thriving — no catastrophes, but there is a coyote on the loose!

Søren’s Toots + Yedda Specimen Card	Yedda and her Goslings

Pearl, my love! She ran out into the darkness (was it the coyote?) with fervor — straight into the new wheelbarrow we left in the path. She is recovering, but I do wonder if the wheelbarrow saved her from a worse encounter.

My nursery, Bluebells and my studio, deer munched Dutch tulips, scented daffodils and the Peg and Awl barn in the background, and wood poppy!

Specimen Cards

We have Garter and Northern Water Snakes here...	And a variety and abundance of frogs and toads!

We also have a family of Painted Turtles!	All of these creatures live by and in the untended to ponds.

Our Pearl!	Piplup is the last of our many chickens and guineas. She has somehow survived the many attacks of foxes, &c.

At Home Exploration

We’ve returned home from Florida, where winter’s end, hormones, lawn talk, and chain stores wreaked havoc on my mood the first day. Fortunately, for myself and everyone around me, a walk around Wakodahatchee Wetlands quickly settled my inner chaos. Florida, like anywhere, can be so many things at once!

Back home, at the Five Acre Wood, Pearl and I awoke early to sunshine and went outside to visit all the plants’ changes during our weekend away. The three small Witch Hazel transplants survived: their tiny yellow flowers small and sparkly in the woodland. A few Squill, Hellebores, and Crocuses have flowered. Snowdrops have bloomed by the thousands, the snow drop math proving successful here though when I step back, the little clumps have a lot of multiplying to do before they change this comparatively expansive landscape! Even more Daffodils are about to burst, whilst Hepatica, Foam Flower, Geraniums, and other greenies have sent their distinct tops out of the soil and into the sun! A few years ago, I couldn’t have identified these plants by their flowers, and here I am, calling them by their names so soon. It feels magical, this ever-learning.

I’ve planted thousands of plants since we moved here five years ago. Some will take five years to bloom; others have already started on their journey, only to be destroyed by my rambunctious Pearl or over-eager deer families, hopping the fence when Pearl is elsewhere.

Snowdops by Silas	Jack-in-the-Pulpit by Søren

May Apple by Søren	Daffodils (most abundant) by Silas

Bamboo by Silas	Virginia Bluebell by Søren

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Shop Our Specimen Cards!

Our Specimen Card Notebook!	Story on the back!

Some of the boys’ early drawings on the end pages!	It fits inside our Sendaks!

Sendak for Knitters!

Like everything we make at Peg and Awl, we made the Sendak first for ourselves, and then for everyone. Our objects most often arise as something we desire, something missing in the world.

As one who writes and draws, it was easy to share with other writers and drawers — and the Sendak exploded. But we are often asked if it will work for chefs, make-up artists, knitters, crocheters, sculptures, &c. as well. We love seeing photographs pop up sharing these other uses — but it isn’t often.

The question of knitting comes up the most, so with the help of Brooklyn General Store, one of our stockists, we set up a Sendak for a beginner knitter.

If you use your Sendak for other things, please share with us – we’d love to see.

Share with us on Instagram, Reviews, YouTube, or whereever you spend your screen time – we’d love to see!

A Mini Sendak works too!	An Orra Portrait notebook – perfect for project ideas and notes.

A Classic Sendak in Slate.	I made this for stitch markers from scrap. We had a great response so are working on Leather Scraplings now! See our Waxed Canvas Scraplings here!

A Pouch for Littles!	The back pocket is great for notebooks.

Pockets filled with knitting tools from Brooklyn General Store	Lavender Treasures from Warwick Furnace Farm

Starter set-up in Our Knitting Sendak

• Stitch Markers by Allstitch Studio
• Short Blade Scissors by Merchant and Mills
• Tape Measure by Merchant and Mills
• Ruler and Gauge Set by Cocoknits
• Yarn: Skydance Fibers
• Interchangeable Knitting Needles
• Orra Sketchbook by Peg and Awl (!)

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Some Shared Sendaks!

Sendak Mini for Knitting Needles and Supplies Photograph by Alice O.	Sendak Mini for Storing Crochet Needles! Photograph by Maryse M.

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Sendaks in Clay Studios

My clay set up in a Moss Sendak. Still rather clean, as I've not made time to frequent the local clay studio. 

My introduction to clay was inside of this big yellow clay pot!	Cara Graver’s Cob Studio, a time traveling adventure.

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Here is my friend Darla Jackson’s Sendak in All Black. A well-loved and daily used clayey wonder! 

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Your Reviews!

Shop Tijana’s original illustrations in her shop, here!	“Beautiful artist roll is from @pegandawl and it’s a keepsake piece to get you round with everything you need in one place, it fits whole sketchbooks, papers and palettes in, next to all the other usual stuff that you can get into these. And if that is not enough it’s extremely beautiful.” –@tijanadraws

Happy New Year!
“Turn it and turn it,
for everything is in it.”
–Ben Bag Bag

Growing and flourishing are not always analogous.

Join us for a quick wander through 2023, the year we smallened Peg and Awl, and moved out of Philadelphia. Also the year where we found ourselves finding ourselves again. The ‘smallening’, as I’ve been calling it, is a bit vague. I’m an open book when it comes to most things, and would love to engage in conversation on the topic, but mostly, I know neither where to begin, nor how to distill it. The simplest version is this: Peg and Awl was a thriving small business with twenty-five people at our height, reaching sales numbers we’d never imagined nor planned for. But the joy of having a small business, being curious, and exploring this weird world with family and friends, became secondary as our responsibilities to maintain this monster perpetuated. Somehow growing and flourishing are not always analogous.

And here we are in 2024, returning, already, to what matters most! We’ve ventured south for a little warmth and a lot of biking, I went north for a mini retreat in the snow. We’ve been working on new Peg and Awl treasures, building our barn storefront and workshop, and working on the land.

We cannot wait to share our progress – there are so many stories to tell!

Our 14th Anniversary was January 10th!

I love the weirdness of quilts – especially those that appear to be constructed of spectacularly odd combinations of colour and pattern, perhaps the result of making with what was on hand! 

Scholar Pouches (Sold Out)	The Small Hunter Satchel (Sold Out)

The Mini Tote (Sold Out)	The Maker Pouch (Sold Out)

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Jewellery

Solvitur Ambulando Ring	Opal Earrings

Terran Necklace	All the Names Collection

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Some Classics Reframed

Specimen Cards I received these cards from Søren and Silas for Christmas and they are wondrous. They’ve celebrated aspects of the Five Acre Wood. Gift them blank, or fill them in!	The Sendak Mini Ah, the many ways to fill a Sendak. Here is a Spice Mini, with a new project palette, ready for an outdoor adventure.

The Finch Satchel in Red Maple We are down to the last few Red Maple Bags including The Finch!	Foundlings Prints Foundlings originals and prints in a frame or out add mystery to any space!

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A Rural Pen Ink is Back in Stock!

A Rural Pen Ink made from guns!	I love how this ink mixes with others – the granulation is an experience!

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Everywhere, Astonishments!

Movie: Poor Things! Have you seen it? It has created quite a tension in our house with dramatically different interpretations!

PI started reading Kaveh Akbar’s new book, Martyr! It is the first book in ages that I’ve had a hard time putting down. “He studied himself in the mirror, thought his teeth looked sharper.” and “For as long as he could remember, Cyrus had thought it unimaginably strange, the body’s need to recharge nightly.”	The Snowdrops started to bloom a month and a half-ish early. Here they are, the morning after the snow melted away.

Happy New Year!
“Turn it and turn it,
for everything is in it.”
–Ben Bag Bag

Growing and flourishing are not always analogous.

Join us for a quick wander through 2023, the year we smallened Peg and Awl, and moved out of Philadelphia. Also the year where we found ourselves finding ourselves again. The ‘smallening’, as I’ve been calling it, is a bit vague. I’m an open book when it comes to most things, and would love to engage in conversation on the topic, but mostly, I know neither where to begin, nor how to distill it. The simplest version is this: Peg and Awl was a thriving small business with twenty-five people at our height, reaching sales numbers we’d never imagined nor planned for. But the joy of having a small business, being curious, and exploring this weird world with family and friends, became secondary as our responsibilities to maintain this monster perpetuated. Somehow growing and flourishing are not always analogous.

And here we are in 2024, returning, already, to what matters most! We’ve ventured south for a little warmth and a lot of biking, I went north for a mini retreat in the snow. We’ve been working on new Peg and Awl treasures, building our barn storefront and workshop, and working on the land.

We cannot wait to share our progress – there are so many stories to tell!

Our 14th Anniversary was January 10th!

Søren and Silas made me a bunch of Specimen Cards of the Five Acre Wood for Christmas!	I continue to fill sketchbooks and journals, and am designing some new books and journals that will be available soon!

One of the most thrilling parts of 2023 was finally launching our long-in-the-works Solvitur Ambulando ring – and with much success! We appreciate all of your shared stories. Thanks to Claire of Warwick Furnace Farm for modeling for me!

We opened up our barn shop which we look forward to stocking with Peg and Awl treasures and more. We are heading to New Orleans for the NAMTA show in March!	We made new treasures out of Sendak scraps, and small batch colours, a puzzle of a kind!

We spent a week on a cargo ship during a storm on the North Sea – there were two visible twisters at one point! By the fourth day a calm settled over the sky, and the water, and the few floating birds, and we jumped into the cold sea. (no showers on board!) 

So often I wish to jump back in, to return to the cold depths in that utter post-storm quiet. We went from thinking we’d made a big mistake in booking this trip, to longing to do something like this again – such a harrowing and magical adventure!

Here in Whitby England, where we wandered in the glorious and misty rain.	Before the storm and the reality of our upcoming adventure, Walter painted and Søren drew. ps: Walter began to work on a larger Scout!

We discontinued 3/4 of our catalog – both daunting and freeing! Inevitably, once we sell out, the inquiries start pouring in. We still have some Rogues and Weekenders and more available in our Last Chance! section.
(Here, in Amsterdam on gigantic rented bikes!)

Søren, Silas, Pearl, and I moved our studios back into the cozy Springhouse!	We opened our barn for the Chester County open studio tour. Come visit us May 18 and 19!

We traveled! Here we are, on the other side of our wild cargo boat trip after wandering down the coast of England. We spent a quick couple of days in London!

We cold plunged in Virginia when it was 29 degrees outside and were tingling and spectacularly warm when we climbed out onto the previously cold rock to shake off.	Walter bringing flowers over to the barn to brighten the wet and wintry gloom.

Solviture Ambulando (It is solved by walking)! A Christmas Eve post dinner walk and view of the Peg and Awl Barn from the street.

I started 2024 with a retreat with my friend, Deb, in CT during a snowstorm! Making progress of a kind on a project. I share bits on my Substack and @beingmargauxkent	We did a few shows – here we are at Wintherthur, which we shall partake in again in 2024!

One of our last family photographs in our Philadelphia workshop!

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Everywhere, Astonishments!

I was working on this newsletter at Lentil & Co, and this song came on. It comes and goes as songs do, but this one every time, crawls into that place where only certain songs crawl.

No Hard Feelings by The Avett Brothers

Planting in a Post-Wild World	The Comfort of Crows

HOME, AGAIN.

Walter and I started Peg and Awl on the 10th of January, 2010. My journal – which was blank – suggests nothing miraculous. Last night’s power outage from yesterday’s deluge means a coffee shop in-between which rouses the unexpected, always. As I walked and wrote in my new journal*, the in-between felt grounding, as each footfall, each letter, and the sun warming despite the cold, settled me. 

I was thinking that we should share a timeline of Peg and Awl successes, but it occurred to me as I walked, to share bits of the in-between days instead.

Thank you for being here!

• Our Shop! We recently opened it up to visitors for a few days with great success – we met so many wonderful people, which reinforces how lucky we are to connect, through Peg and Awl, to such humans. 2024 will see our shop filled with new treasures from us along with treasures made by others. We are heading to NAMTA in New Orleans in March, on the hunt for art materials.
  
  
• Journals and Kits and Tutorials! We’ve been working on some unusual new designs and look forward to sharing them.
  
  

• Of A Kind Collections (accompanied by more Flea Market adventures)
  
  
• New Collaborations, New Colours, and New Found Treasures!
  
  

	2009   Before starting Peg and Awl, I had a little slow and steady business called The Black Spot Books. I made journals and jewelry and a gathering of my favourite scraps lead me to make the tiniest books, which I eventually strung together into the Library necklace. Boing Boing featured it, making it my first experience with spiraling, viraling.

2010 We started out making treasures for our Philadelphia Row Home, including our Tub Caddy out of reclaimed wood and materials gathered from nearby construction sites. At that point, people were thrilled that we were rescuing the materials from them or the deconstruction sites, saving them time and money with trips to the dump.

	2011   Now with two boys and a business, and needing a diaper bag that wasn’t paislied, flowered, or pre-gendered, we decided to make a bag that would suit all of us. Thus, the first Peg and Awl bag – The Tote – came to life! This may be when we realised we could keep making things first for ourselves, and then for others.

2014   The Black Spot Books and the early days of Peg and Awl treasures were mostly comprised of reclaimed and found materials. As our business evolved, we started using new materials for a variety of reasons, primarily as a shortage of reclaimed materials arose. In our first couple years, we decided to officially launch our Of a Kind collections which harkened back to those early days.

2016   I went to Spain for Picture Camp, a picture book workshop with my art supplies in various pouches and bags. On the way home, realizing i needed something more conducive to traveling, I started to design an artist roll unlike any artist rolls I could find at the time — one that would hold a variety of art materials, could hold small necessities in a zip pouch, as well as small notebooks. Thus, our most popular treasure to date — The Sendak — was born!

2019   Walter, feeling compelled to find his way back to making art as well, went to a painting workshop lead by Jeremy Mann and Nadezda in Tuscany, Italy. On the supply list was a plein air box. Not knowing what this was, Walter ignored it and found himself taping his canvas to his hand to paint. Thus began his developing of the Peg and Awl Scout Plein Air Box!

	2023   Growing weary of Philadelphia and the business success story of growinggrowinggrowing, we sold our Philadelphia workshop and moved everything to our land in West Chester, rebuilt the dilapidated barn, set up shop, and are now enjoying our new adventure!

2024   Journals! I am always eager for change and currently working on new journals*, tutorials, and kits for Peg and Awl. If you’ve been following along, I started this unusual creature a few years ago, and they are nearly ready for take off! This one I made for my friend Deb, using her Pinocchio illustrations on the cover.

Just Yesterday

When the power went out, we found a box of unused Hannukah candles, sunk them into decade old organic black rice and farro, and lit our way through a few rounds of one of our favourite games, reminiscent of The New York Times’ Connections, Code Names! Søren and I started out strong with Roadtrips for 5.

Workspace:

Sophie Blackall’s, Milkwood in New York, Photograph by Sophie.	Our Cabin in CT, photograph by Deborah Stein.

A salvaged flat file turned standing desk! A beloved new corner of my studio. 

Everywhere, Astonishments!

The Flynn Effect and “kids these days...”

I don’t know about you, but I hear a lot of mischief about kids these days and see a lot of memes that don’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

This morning in Turk’s Head Coffee Shop in West Chester, Penna, there was a young person – he must have been 5 – who sat near us and lit up upon seeing a gigantic book of maps on the table and immediately asked “Where is Israel? Where is Japan?” as he navigated the book’s systems. “Mommy, I want to go to Japan.” She considers then realizes he means Japan in the book. Pages turn. “Where is Taiwan. What is this island? Georgian Bay, Ontario. Lake Superior. Where is Minnesota?”

He reads and pronounces places I am still learning, and goes on to explain what makes 75 an interstate.

I could have sat and listened all day, but I had to go fetch my own two creatures, full of wonder, curiosity, and magic. I wanted to leave my name and number, to connect this 5 year old map lover to my 13 and 15 year old map lovers. But maybe they aren’t unusual, these curious young people. Maybe they are everywhere.

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–Margaux