Kate Bowles

Kate uses recycled fabrics and papers and assorted vintage haberdashery ephemera, to create hand-bound notebooks and journals, with a particular emphasis on revealing the sewn bindings on the spine of the book.

Her ideas and inspiration are dictated by the discarded or found materials that she uses. She has a love of vintage haberdashery items and papers … things that have little commercial value or status. Her aim is to create functional books around them, giving them a new use, value and status. Most importantly, she creates books that are to be filled by other people, so the creative process continues when they leave her “…that, for me, is probably the best bit”.

Exposing the stitching on the spine and making it loud and blousy is her nod to women of the binderies in the 1800s.