J O U R N A L

Nice to meet you! I'm Emily Taylor, an illustrator and surface pattern designer based in Toronto, Canada + Naples, USA. I'm also the human behind Cabin Journal, a stationery and home goods company that focuses on cheerful and slightly nostalgic risograph-printed products. This blog features a mix and match of things; sneak peeks into the behind-the-scenes and upcoming Cabin products; lots of plants; bits of illustration client work; shared glimpses of daily life and the adventures sometimes captured on film. You can find me here: www.emilytaylor.ca / @emily_illustrates And more frequently here: www.cabinjournal.ca / @cabinjournal.ca xox E.

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Prince Edward Island | June 2019

With the late spring this year, the lupins were still out and blooming in full in mid-June. I was on a mission to find the biggest clumps of them to photograph. They line most of the sandy ditches on the Island in late spring, and it wasn’t long before finding vast colourful patches to capture. 

There are few things that would have me risk encountering spiders, but on the quest for a photo, all 8-legged phobias are thrown to the wind. I scrabbled up hillsides through brush, and jumped into densely-overgrown 4-foot deep ditches, without knowing whether I’d be landing in water or sludge, encountering spiders or mice, to get level with these massive blooms and get. the. shot. 

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Salt Wind quilt! I love how the hexagons ombré across the quilt surface and that they backed it with the collection’s hero fabric, the Salt Marsh print.

Quilt design by @emily_dennis_ with the Hexie Rows quilt pattern.

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Salt Wind has been in stores since late April! I am starting to see so many shops posting about it on Instagram and a number of projects sewn up with it, and it makes my heart so so happy! 

Quilting fabrics are a beautiful thing - they are not fleeting like editorial work, they are not ephemeral. People make conscious choices to select them specifically, to put so many hours and effort and love into working with them. They become a baby’s first blanket and housewarming gifts for new homes, toddler’s birthday outfits, graduation gifts, Christmas presents and more. They are made with love, given with love. They last through generations and the projects made with these fabrics become cherished objects. I am so honoured that those that choose to work with my fabrics selected them, and that they will become another thread in their lives and their family’s stories.

*Photo credits: The Work Room, Toronto + Club Tissues.

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Prince Edward Island | June 2019

Suited up in mosquito netted jackets and bee suits (the mosquitos and black flies are absolutely fierce this year), with the attitude of venturing into deepest Borneo, we entered a dense patch of forest off one of PEI’s many red-dirt roads in pursuit of the elusive lady slipper blooms. Their locations are such a well-guarded secret that my family wasn’t shared the location of these flowers until four years after they had moved to the Island - the locals putting them through a vetting period, to make sure they’d respect the delicate and rare nature of this variety of northern orchid. 

It can take a lady slipper plant 10 years to product flowers after growing roots and leaves, and these plants grow a delicate underground network of rhizomes that spread from the main plant; stepping too close to a lady slipper plant can damage these underground systems, and damage the main plants. If left undamaged however - giving them a respectful wide-berth when forest walking, these sensitive plants can grow into large patches or ‘colonies’ with lots of flowers clustered. Some of these lady slipper patches may grow in the same places for over a 100 years.

Walking through untouched forest following a thin and winding hunting trail, it was a bit like stepping into a patch of fairytale woodland when we finally emerged from the ferns into a forest glade dappled with sunlight. Emerging from a thick carpet of moss were patches of blooming lady slippers, their nodding pink blossoms glowing in filtered sunbeams. Pure magic. 

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Prince Edward Island | June 2019

Off today on an adventure - to discover the extremely elusive PEI Lady Slipper flowers. They are rare, fragile, and their locations are well-guarded secret around here to protect them. 

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Prince Edward Island | June 2019

Back on island time for a family gathering and doing some serious flower foraging! All the L flowers: Lupins, Lilacs and Lady slippers (photos coming). Lovely.

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Textural heaven for a client project. Any project that lets me draw flowers is an A+ in my books.

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Toronto | May 2019

Back from a whirlwind of colour to our sleepy spring. I’ve been a busy bee with an ongoing project from January - really enjoying the textures within the illustrations. Over 30 illustrations for this project so far, with dozens of people and pups!

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Naples | May 2019

Pom pom tree! They glow in the sunlight and look like those fiberoptic lights from the 90′s.

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Naples | May 2019

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Naples | May 2019

Naples Botanical Garden, some favs!

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Naples | May 2019

Naples Botanical Garden - my Mum and I visited the garden one afternoon to take in the flowers and to get references photos for my fourth fabric collection with Figo (not giving away the theme yet ... but there are plants!). I love the proliferation of bougainvillaea that greets you as you walk towards the main entrance, they are so vivid that they appear fluorescent.

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Naples | May 2019

I love plumeria flowers! I first noticed them in Hawaii when I was in my teens, following a mysterious perfume around our resort until I tracked it down to these beautiful flowering trees. I bought a vial of the perfume in the hotel’s gift shop to bring back to Canada with me, and had it for a few years after to remember the blooms. These trees only bloom late-spring through summer in Florida, and so the first few years down in Naples over the holidays I never knew they were there. When we started going down to Florida in the summer, I was so excited to find them blooming all over the place; what previously were bare, stick-looking bushes transformed into perfumed, flowering clusters nestled in tear-drop-shaped leaves. 

This year I gathered up a skirtful of fallen plumeria flowers after a hard rain and brought them home to press. I will check in on them in a few months, and though I am not sure they will retain their colours when flat, if they go brown I’ll still be able to cyanotype print with them.

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Naples | May 2019

Back in the Land of Flowers and surrounded by colour!

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Toronto | April 2019

Spring is still dragging its toes, and all the spring flowers are late. In the city here we are all waiting for the cherry blossoms of High Park to bloom, but that still looks to be a month away. The forsythia and lilac are still are barely budding, and the snowdrops are still up. Luckily I will be heading south soon for some much needed warmth, colour and plants.

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Toronto | April 2019

My winter blues palette continues on with our very reluctant spring this year. Let’s hope the colours and season changes soon, I am eager for flowers once more.

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Prince Edward Island | March 2019

Cups of tea fuelling our winter afternoons. I find myself drawn to blues this trip. Blue tree shadows. Blue china patterns. Crisp and frosty winter blue skies. Discovering this blue-patterned end page in an older book fit nicely with the colours of this trip.