Your Antidote to Facebook and Twitter

The more we're forced to live in this online, digitised world - under pressure to display our every thought while persuaders convince us that ownership of things is so old fashioned - the more I want to flee to a different world.

I want a world where physicality and sensuality matters; where I have the moment in my day to handle those small objects through which I can tell myself stories of the world. A key, a ring, a fragment of a letter in another hand. I want a private place to rest, to remember what's important: balance myself, consider why I choose the way I do. To think.

I want not to tell the world those moments. I want not a world compelling me to constantly account for thoughts, desires, beliefs, mistakes. I want not a world which tells me then to improve, behave, reorder, re-create to another, better set of rules.

I want a world that can be mine, just for me, for that quiet moment, privately.

Design inspirations: privacy

The first, the last, the alpha, the omega, the reason the book came to be, Lo and Behold, the Knicker Drawer Note Books.

Privacy, modesty, a moment to hold back that blabbing mouth before it splashes every public place with ne'er a thought to a wiser inhibition, we all need, at times, a Knicker Drawer Note Book.

And privacy is riven through every book I make. The tie or ribbon that binds the book? If you pull that ribbon and this is your book, this moment should be a lovely anticipation and delight.

But if it's not your book? The ribbon is a marker. The pulling of that ribbon will be a violation. Once those covers are unwrapped, you will know if a violation has occured! The ribbon will be out of place, the pages arranged differently, the folds, nets, fabrics, not in the order only you have come to know, for the combination of how you wrap the net, secure the felt, and fold the paper is the secure lock of your book, kept in your mind.

Your book is your private space. Keep your privates, private.

Design inspirations: the sensory, tactile book

Every Knicker Drawer Note Book must meet your fingers as well as your eyes. I want that cover and those pages to reach you with catches, frictions, resistances, smooth-as-skin touch. Small chimes, shells, bells, stones, glass and wax papers will creak, tap, and rustle your approach to these pages. Your fragrance you bring from your touch.

Design inspirations: therapy

Here's a tale. Running a drop-in workshop making journey books, a woman came to me and said they were terrifically pretty, what are they for?

I explained how the journey you stitch into the book is one you can take literally, or metaphorically. You can walk about the gardens, or walk about your mind, or your soul, or your heart, or the places of your recollections and childhood. Whatever it is that makes you, you.

As you walk, think, choose, stick, write, you build a story of a moment. You need never put your name on your journey book. If you wish, you can hang your story from the branch of a tree and watch it spin and dance in the wind. Any passer-by can read it. Anyone might take your book, follow your steps, walk in your shoes and for a moment, they might know an altogether different you.

She spent two hours making a book, walking about the gardens, thinking, choosing her words carefully, making a journey that didn't have an ending or a beginning. Peeking over her shoulder, catching a glimpse of her words, I was glad she could take the opportunity.

She is a person I keep in my head, and she is the reason why I make the books always with spaces for reflection and quiet consideration.

Design inspirations: twistings & transgressions

Yes, I want to explore many design ideas! Many are given to me by way of commissions and requests. Like the one for teenage becoming, please supply in girly pink.

You don't get sweeter than strawberry bonbons, pink net, and soft ostrich leather (Hong Kong acquired offcut from Dior!).

I enjoyed making these limited pieces, yes I did, and they hit the craft stall ready to choose, soon.

But there exists that ugly, unruly, submerged part of my id. You know the one. The one who cannot pass a Cath Kidston shop without wanting to smash the windows in. (The id is a monstrous weight for my super-ego, I can tell you.)

The snarling id wants it all un-cute, un-nice, un-neat, un-wise with a dagger in the binding and a twist at the heart. It may start off by rolling its cruel, ungenerous eye to steampunk, goth, cult and fetish interests.

But wouldn't this be a very English thing to do? Imagine me in my Laura Ashley elasticated-waist skirt stitching crafted books for the fisting brigade.

Here, have a far more nuanced, truer, wiser and perceptive analysis of the Kidston brand than I will ever dredge up from my id before I can calm it down with a nice cup of tea.