Sometimes we’re sorting through a box of old bobbins straight from a mill and find bobbins unlike any we’ve ever seen before – unique, beautiful, with lots of history and flair. And that’s a hard thing to say because all of our bobbins are beautiful, with lots of history and flair but some have a really rare design that makes them even more precious. Of course it’s not said that there are not more of these seemingly rare bobbins hidden away somewhere but after a couple of years in this business you get to know a lot of designs and old manufacturer’s marks.

In these moments with exciting finds under grease and dirt it gets very difficult sometimes not to hide these treasures away and to keep them. In fact the whole team is suffering from a bit of collector’s syndrome and only a lack of space keeps us from hoarding old industrial implements, tools, etc. Even though we buy these bobbins specifically to put our paper yarns and paper twines onto them and sell them again I can tell you that it’s sometimes really hard to send them out again even with the knowledge that our customers share our love for these artifacts of textile history.

I do not even want to imagine how difficult it must be for sellers of a diverse range of vintage goods to let go of their product – while we have “only” bobbins to let go they have whole furnishing houses of beautiful, old goods to say good-bye to… It’s the bobbins you see here that prompted this little blog article – after having them on the desk for a year and a half it seems finally time to let go of them and send them out to a new owner. Please treat them well.

Schon entdeckt? Ein ausführliches Interview mit unserer Linda auf dem DaWanda-Blog – mit Einblick hinter die Kulissen, Inspiration und den Lieblingsseiten im Netz.

Sorry, this interview is available in German only.

There is so much going on at the moment – and we’re really happy and grateful that more and more people fall in love with our paper twines and paper yarns! At the moment we’re very busy with deliveries to wholesale customers so you can purchase our products locally, too. But we quickly want to share some pictures with you today: some of our paper twines are showcased in the new November/December edition of the German magazine “Living at Home”. You can find these products in our online shop and on dawanda (in German).

Also we had a blast at the FESCHmarkt (design market) in Vienna last weekend! It’s great to meet customers in person, have a chat, meet other designers and exhibitors and have a glass of punch. Thanks to everybody who stopped by and said hello – see you again next year!

The one and only: FESCHmarkt!
The FESCHmarkt will take place this weekend in the Ottakringer Brewery in Vienna, Austria and we’ll be there.
It’s the only market we do this year so if you’re in the area stop by and say hello – we would love to see you!

FESCHmarkt:
Saturday, November 17: 11 – 20:00
Sunday, November 18: 11 – 20:00

We will bring our paper twines, paper yarns, paper jewelry and a whole range of hand-painted boxes and even handmade gift tags to add the final touch to your Christmas presents. All your gifting in wrapping supplies in one stop!

Wow – the Discover Paper Holiday Gift Guide 2012 was published last week and as always it’s filled with paper gifts, ideas, cards, etc. etc. from the first to the very last page! We’re very happy that PaperPhine also found its way into the guide – what an honour! Thanks a lot, Donaville!

The studio is currently very busy preparing for the FESCHmarkt in Vienna this weekend – a market filled with handmade goods, design and art made by young Austrian designers and small studios. We’ll post some pictures of our preparations later this week, promised.

It’s trly amazing what projects our customers realize with our paper twines. I need to admit that I’ve known Linda Barabé for quite a while (13 years to be exact) and I’ve always admired her creative energy and ideas. Linda says that she has had problems first to come up with a suitable project for the paper twines because they seemed very precious. But eventually it came to her: paper twine dream catchers!

By now Linda Barabé has made a lot of dream catchers because as soon as they’re finished and hang in the house a visitor falls in love with the newly finished piece – and it leaves to catch bad dreams at a different place. Luckily living in the Canadian province of Québec there is an abundance of natural materials and the whole family helps to find old branches, feathers, bones and more. For the big dream catcher shown here a huge, cleaned veal bone was sawn into fine slices by the family butcher.

There are different beliefs of how dream catchers actually work – you can read more about it here on wikipedia. The Ojibwa believe that a dreamcatcher changes a person’s dreams, some say that all bad dreams get caught in the net and only good dreams can filter through.

The three-piece dream catcher shown here was made especially for Linda’s son so the red colored feathers were carefully chosen to his likings and the wooden pieces all come from places that are meaningful to him. The loop itself is wrapped in leather cord and the net is woven/wound out of natural paper twine. Linda Barabé initally followed dream catcher courses in Canada and by now she herself is teaching this tradition as well. Introducing paper twine as a new, natural material is quite a great idea – thanks, Mme. Barabé!

Besides preparations for upcoming craft fairs and Christmas we’re busy with the design of our new online store. It will be slightly bigger, easier to navigate and with more pictures to show you our paper twines, bobbins and odds and ends. One of the tasks that have to be completed is a re-shooting of a lot of our products. The investment in good daylight photo lamps already pays off because the days here in Vienna get shorter and shorter and light is not always as abundant.

One of the pictures for the new shop that shows a whole range of available colors – yes, we know that it won’t become easier to choose colors in the future because you’ll likely want them all… sorry for that. The other picture shows a kraft colored crepe paper streamer/ribbon we’re currently playing around with (whenever we find a spare minute at least). It’s great for gift wrapping, flower-making and all kinds of decorations and it will be available in the new store!

We do have one dress form in the studio that is a big help for taking all kinds of pictures when no one else feels like modelling. We tend to call her – and it’s obviously a she-form! – Suzie or Stracciatella and both quite affectionally, especially the later. To explain, Stracciatella is one of the studio’s favorite ice-cream flavours (“… gelato with a vanilla base and chocolate shavings… It is somewhat analogous to chocolate chip ice cream in North America though the chocolate is intended to be less chunky and more integrated with the gelato. It was invented in 1962 by Enrico Panattoni, the owner of the “La Marianna”, a gelateria in Bergamo in northern Italy.” – wikipedia).

Making a new dress form: layers and layers of differently colored newspapers…

What we like about our old Suzie-Stracciatella is that she’s made of paper from neck to waist (with a wooden base and a neckpiece) so she fits perfectly into the PaperPhine studio. Unfortunately it was impossible to find an all-papery sister for Suzie and therefore we decided to make a dress form ourselves. Based on Suzie – literally formed over her – the new dress form is not quite finished yet.

Taking the new form off the old one was more difficult than expected so now there is a lot of patching to do. Also we have not yet decided what “skin tone” the new dress form will get but we think about a neutral gray so she can wear paper twine jewelry in all colors. And there is no name yet but surely there will be one right after the next visit to the ice-cream parlour!

PaperPhine is featured in the “What’s New – section” of VOGUE Knitting Crochet Edition 2012 (sold in Europe as Designer Knitting). We guess there is no need to tell you that we’re celebrating! And it’s really nice when you can tell people “We’re in the VOGUE! (Knitting, anyway)!” – besides a lot of crochet designs, pictures, patterns, reports about fibre artists, etc., etc.