Today I was well sidetracked from the ongoing business of editing alternaCrochet.

On my (virtual) way to seeing about getting some Big Crafty earrings tweaked, I stumbled on one of Asheville’s many craft hothouses. Sarah English Roberts makes jewelry and is a fine-letterpress artist at Brandon Mise’s Blue Barnhouse studio. He’s going to curate entries for his forthcoming book on letterpress art, to be issued by Mark Batty Publisher. Tomorrow I’m going to visit the studio and hopefully see the presses and bench.

Speaking of quirkily named studios of handmade jewelry and books, I tapped TheBlackSpotBooks for a stimulating studio peek via this Etsy Storque video. The jeweler-book artist Margaux Kent barters for vintage leather with a history, so that each blank book she makes has a tale built in.

Meighan O’Toole presents rapturous studio visits—all color and light and texture—for armchair browsing at My Love For You (Is A Stampede of Horses). This woman really sees when she looks, if you know what I mean. Follow up on every single one of her tremendous posts and links. Well worth the time.

Here are a couple of things from my curiosity cabinet. Intimate Havens is the name of a group piece my letterpress class put together last year at BookWorks. Our instructor, Frank Brannon, is a great book arts teacher. And this dos a dos journal was designed and hand-crafted by book-cum-sculptor Daniel Essig. He covered the boards with a pair of gloves my writer friend Peggy had given me after her Italian summer. When my nails had finally pierced each fingertip, the gloves were ripe for creative recycling. For the front of each dos, Dan sewed in tiny vintage embossed-paper photo frames. They hold matching childhood portraits of my brother and I.

Now, where was I?