Peep Show Envelope

I made this envelope in 2005. I had a crush on some boy and wanted to send him a letter, but in the process of creating the envelope I fell more it love with it and less in love with him. (A familiar story.) I was obsessed with envelopes in general, mainly creating them out of found paper and materials, and this was one of my very first sewing with paper experiments. There are so many things going on here, like suspension:

And, as a solution to not wanting the suspending thread to travel across the surface of the paper and instead remain on the unseen side, beading:


I wanted a hint of this structure to be visible with the envelope closed, so I mirrored the suspended disk in the circle cut out on the flap, and finished the edges with a blanket stitch:


You can see here as well the functional edging of the flap itself. I took black carpet thread and braided a strand somewhere between two and three feet, stitched the middle segment to the envelope with an even blanket stitch, and left substantial length on either end that may be wrapped and tied around the envelope in a number of different fastening methods.


As a final step, and probably because I don't know when to stop when I ought to, I carried the delicacy and curves of the aesthetic into the inner, penned design:


And then decided that this was one envelope there was no letter for, and didn't send it.