Wednesday 9 December 2009

Monsters of a household variety

It's seems this month is all about monsters, maybe it's a reaction of Where the Wild Things Are.... But these monsters are different as they are hand sewn and in a gigantic book called Monsters of a Household Variety .
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The book is a creation of British textile artist, illustrator and 2009 winner of the New Designers One Year On prize, Ruth Ashton. The book was commissioned by Anthropologie, to coincide with it's London flagship opening.


The pages are so intricately sewn and she uses interesting materials for each monster. Each spread is dedicated to the different monsters you might find in your own house like the smelly bin monster, the light bulb popper, the remote control remover, the hot water runner monster...each have their own mischievous stories. The book is enormous (25.5"H, 24.5"W, 3"D), I've included pictures from the Anthropologie site to show the size!

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The 24 page book doesn't come cheap - a mear $1,200.00, but to be honest it is a limited-edition, soft cotton page, hand-embroidered book so if you can afford it then it's worth it's money. I will just have to keep popping into the NYC shop to get my dose!
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4 comments:

  1. made in india by the way...very disappointing considering the price

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  2. I wish I hadn't seen this, makes me want it more. Maybe they'll find a way to make a smaller morhandheld copy which is cheaper and easily distributed. You'd lose that tactile feel of the book, but at least you could view it at your leisure.

    Have you ever tried a set of books called Beasts?

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  3. Anon: I don't know how many were made, but I'm guessing we're talking double figures - and I'd imagine it would've take Ruth a very long time to create them all! At the end of the day she created the original and they are all her ideas.

    Dyl - I will check the Beasts book out today! Thanks!

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  4. No Problem. Its not hand sewn or anything, but there is such a variety of illustration styles for each kind of mythical beast a they do go into nearly every world folklore going.

    Ieed to save to purchase book 2.

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