Each new Of a Kind collection allows us to dig around and find treasures within treasures. Every discovery holds a bit of the past, and the story and marks accumulated. They are a joy to put together and harken back to the best part of our origin story – the gathering of old things and the reimagining and reworking of them into once again useful objects.

We have a handful of journals covered with Antique Leather Postcards!	We have a selection of crossbody bags made with our limited canvas colors and vintage textiles!

Our Springy 2023 Of a Kind Collection!

Happy Spring! We are getting outside, digging in the dirt, and being surprised again at the bounty of colour, texture, and wonder of the season.

This Spring collection has a different color palette than we are used to here – a Spring of the past, which is familiar, but also a palette of Peg and Awl’s past. As we are working through the layers of the shop, we are finding so many good treasures once buried, like the beloved Antique Leather postcards. We have an abundance of small treasures, as well as some particularly special bags and colour arrangements!

Have a wander through our collection of bags and pouches made with homespun linen, a delightful variety of quilt blocks – these are much older and remind me of my childhood. There are also 1960s hardware store aprons, feedsacks, and 1930s dressmakers cotton, along with some of our favourite scraps of scraps, with which we made a variety of littles. Some of the bags are made with our classic waxed canvas colours, and others with our limited Autumn canvas colours – so many hoorahs!

Alt Sketchbook: International Dial Co.
View in our Shop

We have a few blue Watch Part tins in stock – they are nearly 100 years old and have varying degrees of rust and marks of past lives. Each tin comes with 100 sheets of Fabriano Watercolor Paper, cut to size!

My Non-Dominant Hand 100 Day Project from Last Year

We don’t have many of these tins, and we are always looking for more, but in the meantime – grab your favourite tin, cut your favourite paper and voilà! Here is our short video on cutting your own paper.

Crossbody Bags made with Vintage Textiles!
View in Our Shop 

The more I return to the same flea market, the more I know where to look and find treasures in overlooked corners. These feed and sugar sacks, tool belts, and homespun make magical fun of our classic bags!

Mini Tote with Vintage Homespun German Pillow Sham: Francis	Standard Tote with Vintage Feedsack: Laurel

Mini Tote with Vintage Hardware Store Canvas Half Apron: Moose	Heavy homespun German pillow sham transformed into a Classic Tote lined with Fog.

Classic Tote with Vintage Feedsack: Heidi	For those city dwellers, travelers and others wanting more security, the Totes have a separating zipper that tucks neatly in the bag when not needed.

Mini Tote with Vintage Sugar Sack: Sugar No. 2	Mini Tote with Vintage Sugar Sack: Sugar No. 1

Pouches made with Vintage Textiles!
View in Our Shop

We’ve been finding so many gorgeous textiles at Flea Markets lately that we must tame the scale of each collection. We’ve transformed the gathering of patchwork and scrap into useful pouches, giving them new life.

These pouches are perfect for littles that need organizing. As for me, I recently used mine to gather some Persimmon seeds from the wild! They’re hard to be without and you can never have too many!

These patchwork quilts appear to have been made by two, now three, sets of hands. The small squares were first hand-stitched – they were next put together with a machine, then waiting for me to scoop them up and have Tori make them into pouches with waxed canvas lining and backing.

*Custom Pouch Sizes in this Collection: We have 7 pouch sizes in our Peg and Awl catalog, but when we find a quilt block or scrap that is perfect as is, we make the pouch match its size!

Custom Pouch with Vintage Quilt Blocks: Peecha	Custom Pouch with Antique Hand-Stitched Quilt Block: Cass

Custom Pouch with Antique Hand-Stitched Quilt Block: Maeve	The greens are lined with our Fog waxed canvas!

Custom Pouch with Antique Hand-Stitched Quilt Block: Morley	Custom Pouch with Antique Hand-Stitched Quilt Block: Lucia

Custom Pouch with Vintage Quilt Blocks: Elke	Spender Pouch with Vintage Feedsack: Maude

Alternative Sketchbook: Chartreuse Watch Parts Tin!
View in Our Shop

I couldn’t resist this colour and the mini size. Tuck it in your Sendak and come what may! The smallness makes painting ever-accessible, and the shape makes a good painting feel complete!

Antique Postcard Journals!
View in Our Shop

One of a kind Antique Postcard mini journals are back! The cover is made simply, from antique leather postcards which bear incredible old handwriting, postmarks, and on some, a stamp! The insides, as always, are made of hand-stitched Strathmore drawing paper and work wonderfully with a variety of drawing and writing materials.

Antique Postcard Journal: No. 4	Antique Postcard Journal: No. 16

These postcards are covered in handwriting, markings, and sometimes stamps!	As with all our journals, these are hand-stitched!

These minis are each one of a kind, covered with a unique postcard!	These are made with Strathmore drawing paper and work wonderfully with a variety of drawing and writing materials.

The Secret to a Good Flea (Market) Day is a Good Friend! 

Read the story that celebrates the discovery of some of the treasures in this collection at a Flea Market in the thick of the summer heat!

Art Supplies by Uppercase Magazine
Find it here!

Uppercase Magazine’s Art Supplies book is full of delectable art supplies, art, and artists. We were delighted to be invited to be part of the fun and to be in such colourful company, including some long distance friends, makers of supplies we use and love, and others altogether new to us.

Jeannine gave each maker so many pages to share our most treasured creations and moments!

Greenleaf & Blueberry
Website

Jess’s paints are so satisfying! I love painting with them, and, from a maker’s perspective, I appreciate the way the paints fill the vessels so cleanly. They look even better when messy with use!

Jeanne Oliver
Website

Beam Paints
Website

I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with Anong Beam on the telephone, as well as getting to know her through Instagram and her paints! Her exploratory process is incredibly inspiring, how I’d love to peek into her studio!

Viarco
Website

I enjoy Viarco’s water soluble graphite in many forms and always have a few pencils and a tin in my Sendak Artist Roll.

Kremer Pigments
Website

Walking into Kremer in NY years ago, changed my life! The film Turner introduced me to pigments on scales for paint making and I vaguely recall the paint making in The Rise and Fall of Silas Lapham. But walking into Kremer unlocked a reality that I was absolutely smitten with – and I’ve been making paints ever since! 

La Maison Du Pastel
Website

Watching their process of making on Instagram is mesmerizing and strangely, I want to visit and sink my teeth and being into the process. 

Musgrave Pencil Company
Website

The endless satisfaction of multiples!

Chalk Copenhagen
Website

Another scrumptious handmade pastel company. I better get to using mine up so I can try out others! 

A Ramble About Clay and My New Moss Sendak! 

We designed the Sendak for drawing and writing, and I have used mine for that since 2016. But my recent tumble into clay gave me a reason to choose another colour, and gather some new-to-me tools to fill it!

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

‘“Who in the world am I?” Ah, that’s the great puzzle.’
–from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

I used to drive around and explore flea markets, find abandoned houses, and take photographs with a heavy Hasselblad that hung around my neck and bruised my chest. I had a car full of props and costumes, and bags for collecting abandoned house treasures like dresses, photographs, and letters. I didn’t count minutes or hours – I just sang and let the wind move through me as I drove. I’d drop off film and wait a week or more to pick it up – the time between was for thinking. Returning to the camera shop for my 12 square prints and negatives filled me with wild anticipation and gratification for the ongoingness.

This pacing of days somehow became a forgotten, foggy past – until I found clay and Cara’s studio. I began with directions that didn’t lead to the right road in the woods. I wandered amongst tulip poplars in the wintry dimness, looking for an oversized handmade pot, where the ‘open studio’ that I signed up for was about to commence.

When I found it, everything quieted. The ‘building’ was yellow and otherworldly – out of a book, another time, or imagination. As I do, I wandered around, taking it all in with an abundance of questions and shutter clicks. Inside, there were no corners. Diffused light poured in through reclaimed windows, each a different size and each with a deep windowsill. The wood-burning stove cut the chill in the air – I could have stayed for days.

I chose a seat, and got to clay-ing.

After the making was the waiting. As I returned the next week to pick up my fired treasures, I was reminded of the days when I used to drive around and explore flea markets, find abandoned houses, and take photographs with a heavy Hasselblad that hung around my neck and bruised my chest.

The wood burning stove kept us all warm and cozy during a bit of a flurry.	The composting toilet, outside in the cold, was a kind of treat!

The Sendak Artist Roll

Shop Our Stationery Collection

We plan to interview artists and makers who use the Sendak, and share their stories and work. Until then, enjoy Darla’s well-worn Sendak that has been accompanying her for 8 years!

Photograph by Darla Jackson
All Black Sendak Artist Roll

Sendak Artist Roll
in Red Maple

I love this little treasure spot in our City Workshop – soon to be the home of someone new as we move our workshop to the Barn here at the Five Acre Wood!

Photograph by Catharine Mi-Sook

The Mini Sendak Artist Roll

Photograph by Maryse M. Almond Mini Sendak for Crocheters	Photograph by Alice O. Slate Mini Sendak for Knitters

Inside the Sendak...

Shop the Stationery Collection

4” Anselm Bookbinding Kit	Tilda Painter’s Palette

Orra Portrait Sketchbook	Brush Rest Trio

Watch our Walkthrough of the Sendak Artist Roll!

We’ve watched all of the YouTube reviews of our Sendak (thank you!) and have made our own video to answer some questions and share our experiences.

Blog: Our Sendak Walkthrough

Our Of a Kinds!

We have some treasures left from our past Of a Kind collections!

Shop Of a Kinds

A Rural Pen Ink	Essential Pouch with 1800s Dressmaker’s Fabric: Sylvia

Standard Tote with Feedsack: Winnie	Foundlings Original Art: Solidago

Essential Pouch with 1930s Textile Adlai	Small Hunter with 1800s Quilt Block: Bonnie

Everywhere, Astonishments!

• Podcast: Foodie Pharmagolocy: Animal Medication with Dr. Jaap de Roode. I’ve been catching up on all that I’ve missed recently – so many good episodes! This one feels most fun for everyone.
• Book: The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines by Cassandra Quave. Cassandra Quave is now on Substack – read here!
  
  

#100dayproject: Read More on Substack – I Heard A Hawk Today

Snowdrops! They arrived a little early here – these small wonders are always a treasure to happen upon!	Søren’s 100 Days of Tiny Worlds is starting off strong. Here is Day 2. ​@sorenscoutkent

It was such a treat to be featured in and on the cover of In Her Studio magazine! 

In Her Studio Summer 2022 Edition

Ever an Other, as it goes.

“From up here on the hill, it is easy to imagine I am somewhere other. I can travel backward and forward in time. I am not in suburbia. I am watching the barn being built – no, rebuilt – 200 years later. I am watching myself and my family, in the warm glow in the barn windows at night, pouring our experiences onto a page, a canvas. Another, other. Up here, I can clip and mow and sweat, and when I do, thoughts sprout and wither in abundance. I mowed some down as I removed the unwanted barberry, wisteria, and multiflora rose. I’ve hauled some away with bottles and dolls’ heads and plastic flower arrangements still tied in polyester strips from the ’50s and ’60s that have reigned for much too long in this woodland. But up here, my shoulders and my back have stretched and strengthened, and I’ve built towers of words and collected piles of ideas and have squirreled them away somewhere. The moving does me good. Up here, in our tiny wilderness, both I and the land are transformed. The place where I gather inspiration is just as important as the place where I sit down and turn the gatherings into something other.” 

Curious, and always with my rump toward the sky, I gather colour, and other treasures from the earth and transform it into gritty and delicious watercolour paints! 

I always love finding antique treasures for my art supplies in my studio. 

A view from the woodland, also, my favourite family portrait in the creek – though we are in need of a new one. Søren now stands above Walter and me!	This was my studio briefly. We are currenly in the process of transforming it into a showroom/gallery space! Read about our Barn Renovation process, here!

The 100 Day Project begins on February 22, This Year (2023)!

#100DayProject

“Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”
–Tanzanian Proverb

“I trusted its unknowing...”
–Ada Limón in conversation with Krista Tippett
​(On Being Podcast episode: ‘To Be Made Whole’)

I love the excitement of a new beginning – of whittling down endless possibilities and choosing one project that I will embark on for one hundred days. I love knowing that not every day will produce a masterpiece, but by the end, the collection of days will add up to more than where I began. I know that I will be transported. I know that I will slip out of a comfort zone and that I will know more about a subject that I am curious about than I did at the start.

One year I was drawing the variety of plants within a mile or two of my home. Another year, I drew one character and explored the space around her. For the last two years, I’ve been enjoying the smudgy otherness of my left hand. This somehow has given me a new confidence, as if that hand is not me, but a being I am nurturing – a not-myself.

I start somewhere simple – a walk in the woods or making a meal with a new-to-me vegetable – starting with something doable puts me on a path. I make time and space for it – it needn’t be a lot of time, or a lot of space, though it could be. One year I started my drawings on small pieces of paper that I cut to fit inside of an old tin. This led to a daily walk, an abundance of tiny flower paintings, and to our Alternative Sketchbooks!

The repetition becomes meditation, the process is wondrous. By the end, I may find something revelatory.

This year, though I am still undecided, I am leaning toward a new medium.

Where will you begin?

The Projects are Endless!

How to Spend these 100 Days?

100 Days of Clay	100 Days of Any-Handed Sketching

100 Days of Making Ink from Foraged Plants	100 Days of Paper Cut Buildings This is Søren’s cabin!

100 Days of Letter Writing A Letter from Katie!	100 Days of Your Sweetest Our Darling Pearly

I limit my materials...	The framework can be broad or specific...

Start Small and Document!
Shop Our Studio Collection 

Venture Outside The Scout Plein Air Box	Stay Home The Sendak Artist Roll

Start Organized Medium Botanical Desk Caddy	Let Things Find You The Hunter Satchel

Pack Light The Keeper Pouch	Keep Everything in Sight Beatrix Artist Caddy

The 100 Day Project in a Sketchbook!

Bookbinding Tutorial: Planning a Journal for the 100 Day Project

“You can be in a place for years and years and not see somehing, and then when it dawns, all sorts of nuggets of richness start popping up all over the place. You’ve gotten below the obvious.”
–Andrew Wyeth

Some #100DayProjects that I love!

@yoshiko_hada	@ellamorella

Everywhere, Astonishments!
Some Good Things

We are changing Some Good Things to Everywhere Astonishments, (also the title of a picture book I’ve been working on). I find astonishments daily, and am thrilled to have a place to share some of them.

• Podcast: February 2nd’s episode of On Being, Krista Tippet interviews Dacher Keltner about his new book entitled AWE: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. Sometimes I feel like a lightning bug flashing in time with the others, but I suppose we have our antennae out when we dig into a thing. There is a fine line between magic and understanding why. I love walking on it, that line, and peering in on both sides.
• Recipe: Citrus Salad by @pierceabernathy – yum!
• Art: Berman Museum at Ursinus College: I went to see Lydia Ricci’s work that I previously only knew from Instagram. Seeing it in person, along with the titles, was an unexpected time travel to a world on the cusp of a distant familiarity. Visit her during ‘studio hours’ at the museum. In addition to Lydia’s work, were the well-worn paint brushes transformed into elegantly painted portraits by Rebecca Szeto, as well as sculpture, photography, and more.

By Lydia Ricci Website	By Rebecca Szeto Website

We put together a little video so you can make your own book for the #100dayproject! Enjoy, ask questions, and share with us on Instagram so we can see your projects too!

#qbbc100days
#quarantinebookbindingproject
#pegandawlbinds

Please note: this tutorial is specifically about page count. Click here for the full Bookbinding at Home Tutorial: Stitching a Coverless Journal. 

In this video, I’m making two books at a time, both specifically made for the 100 day project. They are both the same size with just a few variations. I find this project to be a really nice reason to get out and observe the world.

These are the two journals, highlighting different colors and vintage textiles!	Here you can see a full journal spread dedicated to one day!

When you’re making a book for a particular project, it’s really important to consider both paper size and page count of your book. I’m making this book for my 100 day project, so I’m going to consider how many pages I will need for the 100 days. Usually, I like to dedicate a full spread to one day, so I’m going to need double the pages, though in some instances, I’ll use one page per day.

Journal Page Planning

If your 100 day project will consist of one spread per day, then you will need 52 sheets, which is the size of one full page spread open. Once you fold a single sheet in half, it’s called a folio. You'll be putting 4 folios inside of each other and that will make up one signature. You will have a total of 13 signatures. That will give you 202 pages, not counting the front and back cover. The few extra pages can come in handy for notes or whatever you may want to add.

If you want to make a book that is dedicating one page to a day, then you will need 27 sheets. You’ll be putting 3 folios inside of each other, and that will make up one signature. You will have a total of 9 signatures. And this will give you 106 pages not counting the front and back cover.

Now that I’ve finished folding and tearing my signatures, I’m going to measure out where I want the textiles to be sewn onto the spine of the book. I’m going to start with my quarter inch ends – this is for the end knots. 

The end knots form lines along the ends.

Measuring and marking my linen and thread layout on one signature.	Then, marking another signature and putting one in front and one in back of the stack.

Usually, I would now put these signatures into a clamp, and use a ruler to connect the front and back markings in a straight line. However, if you don't have a clamp, these double-sided marks will help. In the video, you can see how I use a jeweler saw to make the holes, instead of poking them one at a time (once again, for full instructions: Bookbinding Tutorial - How to Sew a Coverless Journal).

Now I am just going to cut some of this wonderful vintage textile that I found in an abandoned house. 

I am making the strips an inch wide so they can really show off the pattern.	A lot of you have been asking what kind of thread I am using; this is a 3 ply waxed Irish Linen thread.

I have 13 of these signatures, and I’m going to measure 13 lengths of wax thread, slightly larger than the length of the spine. I don’t want a lot of extra thread, because the longer your thread is, especially for a big book like this, the more tangled it’s going to get while you’re sewing. Also, if you cut your thread too short so that you have less to manage, you’re going to have to knot it somewhere in your book, which is not a big deal (but I don't like doing it).

This feedsack textile was in a bundle that I found in my favorite abandoned house that belonged to Flossie and Jack.	Step-by-step sewing instructions!

I have been incorporating antique materials of all kinds into the work that I do for most of my life. I love the stories that they hold, the character, and the quality of these old things. This fascination is what started me off on incorporating textiles into my journals. 

My friend and I found all of Flossie’s dresses in the attic of her abandoned house; we washed them and wore them for years. We saw all the evidence of the patching and the stitching as these were likely from the depression era. 

This red feedsack was originally stitched together to make a bag for grain, and then people would use the patterns and the normal cotton feedstock textiles to make clothes; so this was most likely the negative space from the pattern that was cut, and then they used a piece to tie the entire bundle together.

I am using this delightful leftover for my journal. 

Just one stack of many vintage textiles we’ve used in our projects.	Can you spot the vintage touches in these past sketchbooks?

I’ve participated in this challenge for the last few years, as it encourages me to make marks daily. Some of the drawings in these sketchbooks took 5 minutes, others took hours. It doesn’t matter how long I spend with each drawing, just that I sat down to make some marks.

In 2021 I used Noodlers Black Ink (with the catfish on the front) and my left (non-dominant) hand for my 100 Day Project. I loved it so much that I've done it for nearly 300 days out of the year - that is three #100dayproject notebooks and a rather newly-skilled left hand!

A finished project.	At my desk, with my Sendak Mini and Beatrix Caddies.

I've been sharing my drawings on my art/family account on Instagram @thebrotherskent.	I also write with my left hand. It was such a different experience from my meandering Morning Pages!

Each new Of a Kind collection allows us to dig around and find treasures within treasures. Every discovery holds a bit of the past, and the story and marks accumulated. They are a joy to put together and harken back to the best part of our origin story – the gathering of old things and the reimagining and reworking of them into once again useful objects.

We have a handful of One of a Kind Custom* Pouch Sizes – this one is made with an 1800s Quilt Block!	We have a selection of Hand-Bound Tintype Journals in this collection – read more below!

*Custom Pouch Size: We have 7 pouch sizes in our Peg and Awl catalog, but when we find a quilt block or scrap that is perfect as is, we make the pouch match its size!

Our Wintery 2023 Of a Kind Collection!

This Of a Kind launch was meant for last year, in Winter, but we got tangled in the decision we shared in our last newsletter (if you missed it, you can read here!) And so here we are, ending winter with an abundance of scrumptious old blacks and blues!

Excitingly, in the time between meant-to and are, we’ve added some fun extras, including gorgeous Handmade Ink by A Rural Pen, Tintype Journals, and Alternative Sketchbook Tins!

Have a wander through our collection of bags and pouches made with homespun linen, quilt blocks, prints from the 1800s, feedsacks, and 1930s dressmakers cotton, along with some of our favourite scraps of scraps, with which we made a variety of littles. Some of the bags are made with our classic waxed canvas colours, and others with our Autumn colours — so many hoorahs!

Here we are, ending winter with an abundance of wintry blues when all I feel is colour!

A Rural Pen Handmade Ink!
View in our Shop

This ink is handmade, bottled, labeled, and waxed by alchemist Thos. Little of A Rural Pen. I was so enamored with the ink, and when I learned I couldn’t purchase a bottle directly, I decided to order some for all of us! The ink is made using a historic formula of extracting and dissolving the iron from guns with Sumac, instead of Galls. The ink goes on as a pale, smoky, cool grey, and quickly oxidizes on the page; the shade and depth varies depending on the paper used.

This ink is for dip pens only – it cannot be used in fountain pens.

Note: The ink is hand bottled, labeled, and waxed. Some bottles have a little leakage through the wax. When you use the ink, it will also get on the label so please accept this possibility, as we do not consider it a defect.

Handmade Ink by A Rural Pen	Playing with the ink for the first time!

Testing this magical ink – drawing paper (Left) and watercolor paper (Right)!	Inky left-handed Witch Hazel – watch my drawing video, here!

Crossbody Bags made with Vintage Textiles!
View in Our Shop 

Standard Tote with Feedsack: Wylie	Mini Tote with 1800s Homespun: Edward

Small Hunter with 1800s Quilt Block: Astrid	Heavy homespun linen blanket transformed into a Hunter Satchel lined with Truffle.

I found two full bolts of this textile from the 1800s long ago. The width was 36" which was the width of the looms then. I've been savouring it, and we may have some small bits for bookbinding linens, but mostly, this is its last hoorah!	Hunter Satchels are my favourite hiking and flea market bag — carry only what you need!

Pouches made with Vintage Textiles!
View in Our Shop

We’ve been finding so many gorgeous textiles at Flea Markets lately and have to tame the scale of each collection. We’ve transformed the gathering of patchwork and scrap into useful pouches, giving them new life.

These pouches are perfect for art supplies, make-up, and anything else that needs organizing in your bag or on your desk — they’re hard to be without and you can never have too many!

This feedsack was washed again and again until its printing faded to just a subtle reminder of days past. 

Custom Pouch with 1800s Quilt Block: Mackenzie	Essentials Pouch with 1800s Dressmaker’s Fabric: Dolly

We reserved some Elderberry before it sold out for this collection!	Scribbler Pouch with 1800s Antique Cotton: Sinclair

Keeper Pouch with 1930s Dressmaker’s Fabric: Delia	Spender Pouch with Early 1900s Scrap Bundle: William

Hand Stitched Custom Quilt Block – perfect for small things, fits inside our bags’ pockets!	Saver Pouch with Early 1900s Scrap Bundle: Joanna

Edgeworth Tin: Alternative Sketchbook!
View in Our Shop

We have 6 blue tins in stock – they are nearly 100 years old and have varying degrees of rust and marks of past lives. Each tin comes with 100 sheets of Strathmore drawing paper in celebration of the upcoming 100 Day Project, which begins on February 22.

My Non-Dominant Hand 100 Day Project from Last Year

We don’t have many of these tins, and we are always looking for more, but in the meantime – grab your favourite tin, cut your favourite paper and voila! Here is our short video on cutting your own paper.

Tintype Journals!
View in Our Shop

Read More About Tin Types!

One of a kind tintype journals are back! The cover is black vegetable-tanned leather, and is paired with some of our favourite antique black and white textiles from the 1800s. Beneath oval frames we’ve set enduring portraits of nameless faces newly christened. The insides, as always, are made of hand-stitched Strathmore drawing paper and work wonderfully with a variety of drawing and writing materials.

Standard Tintype Journal: Noam	Standard Tintype Journal: Gertrude

Companion Tintype Journal: Shirley + Jasper	Companion Tintype Journal: Ethel + Timmy

The Secret to a Good Flea (Market) Day is a Good Friend! 

Read the story that celebrates the discovery of some of the treasures in this collection at a Flea Market in the thick of the summer heat!

We’re Moving Out of Philadelphia
...and it's bittersweet!

We are very fortunate – as a family and small business owners – to be able to follow our curiosities to wherever they may lead. Here we find ourselves in another major transition! We – Walter and I, Søren and Silas too, have decided to sell the Peg and Awl building in Port Richmond Philadelphia, and move our business into our Barn here in Chester County, Penna. It felt like a quick decision, but it was the culmination of much quiet consideration. I have always been spontaneous – or so it seems – so much is accomplished in our sleep.

Yesterday was warm and wondrous. As I walked from Port Richmond to Old City for a last minute hair appointment at Barnet Fair, and to treasure hunt at Vagabond Boutique, I felt the weight of nostalgia for what we would soon be leaving, and a lightness too, as I imagined floating, for the first time in a while, into a new unknown.

Lights off – we were about to leave on Saturday but paused for a quick mirror family photograph!	Our barn as seen from the woods!

Some Things to Look Forward to in the Coming Year!

• New Website! We’ve been working on it for a long time – we don’t have a launch date yet, but soon!
• New Jewellery! If you’ve been following along on Instagram – you may have seen some glimpses of these projects over the past few years.
• New Of A Kind Adventures! (accompanied by more Flea Market adventures, read here!)
• Exciting Pivots!

The Foundlings (Peg and Awl) Building: Before and After

Read about the Shop Renovation Project, here!

We’ve put a lot of work into our workshop since we bought the dark and closed-up building in 2016 – from opening cinder-blocked windows and tearing down walls, to transforming the gravel and pavement into gardens. We built and set up a storefront (that we never officially opened) just before the pandemic. We poured concrete floors and filled the wide open space with an abundance of tools and machines and worked with our wonderous crew to design, make, and ship all of the treasures that we share around the world.

We look forward to the next adventure for Peg and Awl and, too, for the building! The dream is always for some magic makers to take the reins and re-imagine a better, brighter, greener, and cleaner corner of Philadelphia.

A lot happens through word of mouth — if you know someone who may be interested, please share!

The Listing for Our Building

After Storefront, trees, plants, and windows!	Before A lightless old space full of stuff.

After Employee gardens and honey bees~	Before Concrete slab (though locals told us it was a wading pool in the summers and an ice hockey rink in the winters!)

After A part of the woodshop!	During Pouring the concrete floor.

During Knocking down the in-between wall.	Before

Renovations and the inhabiting of the nearly abandoned building in Port Richmond, Philadelphia.

Read Here!

The Barn: Our New Shop

Read On: Our Barn Restoration Project

We will continue to make treasures in Philadelphia over the next few months. In May, we will be opening our new workspace to the public for a Studio Tour in May! There we will share our art, showroom, and the goings on of the new iteration of Peg and Awl.

This space will be a gallery and showroom.

Walter’s cozy loft studio will remain Walter’s cozy loft studio.

Our Barn Restoration Project

Read On: Our Barn Restoration Project

“...By the time we had finished removing the rotted bits, the trusses, the rafters, and the floors, it was hard to say if we were reclaiming an old barn, or building a new one in its image. The barn shape – the space within the frame – became one of the few parts I could solidly say remained from the historic place. But over the next few weeks, as I observed the delicate skeleton of the old barn standing strong but precarious in the wind and rain – with day now inside and night inside too – I grew suspicious of this boundaryless thing I wanted to keep. What were we preserving, and more, why?”

The Old Barn from the road.	We hired Precise Buildings to rebuild the barn!

Original wall that divides the two parts of the barn. Pearl and Søren, my loves.	A new view!

In A Warm Winter

We haven’t had much winter yet. There are random days when I am outside in a tank top raking old piles of previously ungardened debris as if Autumn is here to stay. Except, beneath the piles I’ve found thousands of eager green bits who tell me otherwise. The most enthusiastic of them are clumps of Snowdrops and Daffodils so abundant that I long for warmer rainy days so I can move them out of paths and thin them out so they can breathe – so they can take up even more space*.

Now that the mornings are a smidge brighter, I can see the fog that hangs in our little valley in the wee hours, and it lifts my fog-loving spirits. Being awake when the world seems mostly asleep is a gift I receive nearly daily.

Small Batch: The Hunter Satchel in Fog	Small Batch: The Waxed Canvas Tote in Fog

On My Desk

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I am often overwhelmed by the stuff around me. I cannot keep it down. I cannot tame it. I want it all to leave but then I go to a flea market and things call out, and there I go, arms outstretched like a somnambulist. But then I play, and things happen. And they aren’t all good but that doesn’t matter. It is the moving, the shuffling, the brightening and widening of spirits and thoughts and ideas that matters.

I shall not be tamed, and neither, I suspect, shall my stuff.

Mornings are for writing and drawing. And getting inky, inevitably. I love these journals! You can make them with our tutorials as your guide (here) or with our Anselm Bookbinding Kits (here).

Brush Rest Trio made from Antique American Chestnut.	Small Carson Tome for morning pages and all manner of thinking on paper.

“What keeps me up at night is wondering where I planted the Iris Cristatas. Where?” More drawings @beingmargauxkent	“In the sun, 40 degrees feels summery. I removed my winter layers and embarked on the unplanting project at the 5 acre wood. Under piles of dead things, living things thrive! Thousands of daffodils anxious for springs’ arrival!”

Sendak Mini Artist Roll in Almond	Foundlings Small Desk Caddy: Holly

Projects In the Works

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Solvitur Ambulando Jewelry	We will be joining the County Studio Tour in May!

Some Good Things

• *I recently learned about moving plants in the rain in Elizabeth Tova Bailey’s The Sound of the Wild Snail Eating.

• How I Built This with Hank and John Green.
• One of the resources we use for Homeschool is Hank and John Green’s Crash Course. Søren and Silas’s favourite is Philosophy — so much so, they listen twice: once with Walter on the way to Open Connections (their co-op), and once with me on the way back!
• We also loved The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green.

​Tin Type by Tyler Scaife 2011/2012. Tyler was one of our first employees and he helped us build the first woodshop (that we are standing in front of) in the backyard of our Philadelphia row home. Søren and Silas are here too, a blur, for the exposure was 45 seconds!

Our 13th Anniversary!

Walter and I started Peg and Awl on the 10th of January, 2010! According to my journal – which was blank – it was just a day like any other day. Though I’ve always kept a journal, I didn’t commit daily; a blank page now would absolutely denote a different kind of day! But as I sit, my butt pained by the raised root of this old Norway Spruce overlooking a cemetery on a seriously misplaced spring day, I think about how everyday is just another day, and too, how no days are just another day. It is perplexing, this life. Each day is a day to start something new, or a day to simply be. I am trying both.

–January 2020

Thank you for being here!

Walter and I write every newsletter and blog post, should you wish to reach out to us!

Though we forgot our anniversary date, we are daily grateful that the things we love to dream up, make, and use are enjoyed by others too – it keeps our creativity, spirits, and business going!

2023 will see us meandering off of familiar paths into unknown territory. A disruption is in order! Until then...

Some Things to Look Forward to in the Coming Year!

• New Website! We’ve been working on it for a long time – we don’t have a launch date yet, but soon!
• New Jewellery! If you’ve been following along on Instagram – you may have seen some glimpses of these projects over the past few years.
• New Of A Kind Adventures! (accompanied by more Flea Market adventures, read here!)
• Exciting Pivots!

Our Workspaces Through the Years!

The Backyard Shoppe (2010–2012) Photograph by Chris Crisman	The Peg and Awl House ​(2010–2019)

The Atlas Casket Factory (2012–2017) Photograph by Parikha Mehta	The Current Shoppe (2016...) This is where our treasures are made!

The Barn at the Five Acre Wood (2022...)

Read about the Barn Renovation Project, here!

I’ve been moving around The 5 Acre Wood looking for spot that is just right! Here I am in my first studio, which will sooon be a gallery space and showroom!

A view of The Barn from the woodland.	Walter’s loft studio in the barn.

A portrait of our family when we first moved here – we are due for a new one...

Walter takes his Scout Plein Air Box everywhere!	As for me, journals and Sendaks are my constant companions.

Some Good Things

“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”
–Robert Greene

• Podcast: The full quote is so much more exciting than this misunderstood snippet. Have a listen to this episode of Simon Sinek’s A Bit of Optimism – he interviews the TSA head of socal media – Janis Burl. What a thrilling conversation about interruptions and zig zags! 

• Currently Reading: Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss by Margaret Renkl