Spellbinding work of handcrafting book lover

PEOPLE will get to see first hand the art of book-binding when the Designer Makers Market returns to the Witham, in Barnard Castle, on November 19.
Middleton-in-Teesdale artist Holly Brown will be among a host of crafters putting their hand-made products on display.
The former Newcastle University fine arts student draws on her knowledge and skills of ink sketching, watercolour and acrylic painting and lino printing to produce handcrafted journals, under the banner of Things of Wonder Books.
The artist admits happening upon book-binding completely by accident.
She said: “I am totally self taught. I read up about it and tried it out for myself. A lot of it is my own technique.”
She also uses traditional binding methods such as Egyptian long stitch and kettle stitch to bind the pages together, inside a hand-stitched leather cover with a linen lining. The linen contains wool giving them a gorgeous texture. The covers are illustrated with the artist’s own work, mostly of the local wildlife which fascinates her.
She will be returning to the Designer Makers Market after a debut last year, having only moved to Teedale from Seghill, in Northumberland, to be with her partner about a year ago.
She said: “I think it is a really beautiful place. It has a character of its own. It is fantastic. People are very interested in handmade craft here, probably more than people from elsewhere.”
Already she is drawing of inspiration from the countryside and takes photographs of anything that inspires her.
Swaledale sheep in the nearby fields from her home feature on the covers of several of her books, along with sheepdogs, owls and other wildlife. The journals have a variety of uses, from diaries to shopping lists. Those that have watercolour pages are used by artists as sketch books, she said.
While Ms Brown, who works as a youth worker in Blyth two days a week, has a good market for her journals at Elements, an artists’ collective in Rothbury, and Glamorous Owl, a shop of handmade gifts in Newcastle, she is still building up a customer base in Teesdale.
Anyone interested in her books can contact Ms Brown on email at hollybrown.
fineart@gmail.com.