Recent Work from the Bindery

Spring is here, and the bindery is buzzing with new work. When we're busy like this, it's especially important to pause and reflect on the collaborations we enjoy with our clientele. Each one is different, and it's always such fun to customize design features or work with a new paper pattern discovered by a client. Here are a few recent pieces to inspire you.  

A bespoke 3-panel desk pad, with interior pockets. The exterior is made with Italian book cloth and the interior is made with Il Papiro's beautifully hand-marbled paper in a blue peacock pattern.  

Above is one of our popular lidded paper trays or in-boxes, made in bespoke extra-deep dimensions and with a vibrant gold Japanese Chiyogami paper. 

Here we have a customized desk organizer, with a notched tray for note papers, a pen and pencil tray, and a standing slot for letters and envelopes. This piece was made using one of the many classic Florentine prints from Rossi.  

Lastly, here is a set of petite stacking trays, each made with a different paper in cheerful shades of yellow. Our client requested this piece to use as a stacking jewelry box, so each tray is fitted with a padded fabric liner.

Our New Graduated Stacking Tray Designs

A set of octagonal stacking trays made with one of our beautiful new Japanese papers. In the top tray you can see my very favorite antique netsuke and a stack of our fun new miniature desk blotter business cards. Custom made to order trays are available at
The Parvum Opus Shop.

I adore exploring antique shops both close to home and when I travel, and among my favorite finds are small trays. The best ones have beautiful scale and personality, and are always the perfect thing to finish off a desk or table corner. I've designed our new range of trays with my charming antiques in mind, paying extra attention to proportion and scale. 

A set of rectangular trays in graduated sizes. This set was made with our second new paper, a beautiful Japanese Chiyogami paper with a shagreen-like pattern of
gold dots on a rich green ground.

Our new trays are available in rectangular and octagonal formats, in graduating sizes, with or without brass ball feet, and it's been great fun to design these latest additions to our collection. At the bindery, we're known for our meticulous craftsmanship, and it's been particularly enjoyable (I hope it's not too nerdy to say) to design a set of proprietary techniques to ensure that the corners on our octagonal trays are as sharp and crisp as those in our other trays and boxes.

The octagonal trays, with the larger one reversed. I fell in love with this pattern as soon as I saw it. It's a hand silk-screened Chiyogami paper, still made in small batches in the traditional Japanese way, and reminds me of the intricate silk patterns found in kimono fabrics.

The introduction of our new trays coincides with the addition of two new papers for our palette. We stock eighteen papers, which we invite you to see on our website's palette pages. Beyond these, we work with hundreds of fine papers from around the world via special order on behalf of our clients, and it's hard not to fall in love with each one. The Japanese Chiyogami papers in particular come in more than a thousand patterns, each one special in its own way. It was a challenge to settle on our two new patterns, but I think you'll agree that both the interlocking circle design and shagreen-like dotted green design are especially beautiful. 

This is the smaller of our rectangular trays, shown with one of my tiniest antique books, one of our small jacketed Moleskine journals, and an antique English salt cellar, pressed into service as a paper clip container.

I do hope you've enjoyed seeing our new arrivals, just in time for the spring. If you'd like to collaborate on your own perfectly scaled and patterned trays, or if you have a special project in mind, we are cheerfully at your service.

Chiyogami Paper

A notepad folio from our bindery, covered in Japanese Chiyogami paper

At our bindery, we use some of the finest papers made in the world today.  One of these beautiful materials is known as Chiyogami, a hand silk-screened paper made in Japan. The word Chiyogami is a combination of two words: chiyo, or, thousand generations, and gami, paper.  Amazingly, this paper has been made in Japan for hundreds of years, first appearing in the Edo period, from 1603-1868, when Japan was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family.  It was an era deeply invested in environmental protection and the creation and popular enjoyment of arts and culture. Today, these papers are still made with the highest regard fro craftsmanship by a collection of small, family-run studios in Japan. They are expensive to use, but when one considers the quality of design and fabrication, and the importance of sustaining this historic, centuries-old tradition, they're worth every penny.

 

Japanese Waves Chiyogami

The many thousands of beautiful patterns of chiyogami paper were inspired by traditional kimono patterns which incorporate naturalistic and geometric forms representing beauty, long life and good fortune. The fabrication process has evolved through the generations, but is still a laborious process relying on the expertise of highly skilled craftspeople.  Originally printed by woodblock, these papers are now hand silk-screened using a mixture of sulphite and kozo. For each color and pattern layer in the complex chiyogami patterns, a new screen must be hand-registered, printed and dried. 

Blue Mum Chiyogami



Mint Japanese Chiyogami

It is a paper of incredible quality and durability, making it perfect for use in bookbinding and other paper goods. Perhaps with a renewed interest in beautifully made materials and in handmade goods in general, we can resuscitate some of the Edo period principles for our own time. A deep investment in environmental protection and the popular enjoyment of the fine and decorative arts seems more critical than ever.

A Traveller's Picture Frame by Parvum Opus, with Mint Japanese Chiyogami and red Italian book cloth

If you'd like to see more examples of our desk accessories using Chiyogami paper, we invite you to visit:  http://www.parvumopus.com or email us at info@parvumopus.com.

To see a wide selection of Chiyogami paper designs, I cheerfully recommend Paper Mojo, a fantastic online supplier of fine decorative papers: 

http://www.papermojo.com/Chiyogami-Katazome_c_81.html