Karen Turner Stitching Life textile artist stitching by hand

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If you read the comments section of my last post, you will have seen the dilemma of having miniature vinyl LPs with nothing to play them on.

Had to remedy that, of course.

I had a look online for vintage portable record players – actually I used to have one very similar myself, it went to university with me in the olden days when there were few other ways of listening to music.

And after a few days of creative play and problem solving, here it is:

1:12th scale vintage record player

The album covers and records are from Easy Doll Home but everything else is all my own work.

The record player is made from thin sheets of bass wood, card, and painted grey board, with a fraction of pin for a stylus. At one point I thought it was finished and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. Then I woke up at 3am thinking ‘It needs a flex and a three-pin plug! It won’t work without a plug! How am I going to do that?’

Turns out a vintage flex is quite straightforward – perle 3 embroidery thread with a bit of white glue swiped along the length to stiffen it a bit – and you can carve a plug out of layered grey board. Superglue three little lengths of brass pin into it and there it is.

I should have plugged it in to a tiny socket for the video but I think we can probably suspend disbelief for a few seconds.

This week, surrounded by tiny things, has been just what I needed. We currently have a long weekend here in the UK, so I’m not back to work until Tuesday. A bit more time out is no bad thing.

Normal services will be resumed at the end of May with some stitching. Until then, enjoy your weekend. I need to go and paint that little table you can see in the photos.

Shrinking

Sometimes life feels too big, and on these occasions I like to focus on something very small, and something completely different from stitching or mixed media art. Something that’s just for me and nothing to do with work or accomplishing anything.

You may remember the little twelfth-scale Sid Cooke shop kit I started last year.

The interior (about 10″ square) is decorated but needs furnishing in a more sensible way than this:

I’ve been having a little play with some of the tiny things.

I made the shop counter out of scraps of wood and some recycled perspex packaging. The front comes off for access to the ‘glass’ shelf.

Some decades ago I had a past life as a miniaturist, and these days it’s quite a challenge for the ageing eyes. A challenge in a good way though. Sometimes I wonder if the tiny world gives me a sense of control that the real full-size world can’t.

Whatever it is, I find myself retreating into smallness at the moment and feeling better for it. And in any case, all work and no play, etc etc.

I hope you’re making time to connect with the little things that make you happy too.

New PDFs for daily stitching

After a few weeks of very enjoyable drawing and writing, the new PDFs are out. I *think* they’re ok but let me know if you find any glaring errors and I will fire the proofreader (that’s me).

These PDFs are meant to give a little help and direction with daily stitching on the days when you hit a wall and can’t get started.

There are currently four PDFs to choose from, sixty little design sketches in each volume: Lines, Circles, Nature, and Scatter patterns, with brief stitching directions for each sketch.

Volume 3, Nature (mostly flowers and leaves)

There’s also a blank page in each volume for you to jot down your own designs, and once you get started you will find yourself coming up with many more ideas of your own.

The PDFs assume that you are familiar with, and able to execute, some basic stitch types. My online class, Intuitive Daily Stitching, goes through these stitches in some detail and suggests various ways in which you can be creative with some simple stitches. Alternatively, you can consult one of the many embroidery reference books or free online tutorials for help learning some simple stitches.

Occasionally people have trouble accessing the download, so there’s now a ‘Help with PDFs’ page in the shop header with the following diagram and instructions:

The cover photos show samples of some of the designs so that you can see how they might look in real life. Be as creative as you like with colours and thread types.

I really enjoyed putting these together, and I hope you find them helpful. Have a fabulous week.

April 2026

And that was April.

As always, nowhere near long enough.

The colour palette is starting to warm up as the days get longer and sunnier. April has been very dry so far and the garden needs rain.

Today sees the top third of my cloth full: four months of this year vanished and yet still present.

Tomorrow, onwards.

Behind the scenes

There hasn’t been much happening front of house for a couple of weeks because I’ve been busy back stage working on some new PDFs. If you subscribe to my YouTube channel, you might have seen a preview of this in my video earlier this week.

I’ve had a lot of messages and social media comments this year from daily stitchers asking for more direction on what to stitch. With over four years of daily stitching behind me, I have more than enough to share.

So I’ve spent the last few weeks developing four themed PDFs, 60 designs in each:

lines/bands/stripes

circles/spirals/swirls

flowers and foliage

little/scatter patterns

I need to work up some more samples for the front covers and find another couple of pages-worth of designs, but I think I’m nearer the end than the beginning.

I’ve had requests for a book rather than PDFs, but there’s no way I have the head space to tackle a book right now. Books can take months, often years, to get from idea to publication; I hope there will be one at some point in the future though. In the meantime PDFs are relatively simple to make, and much easier to distribute.

Also, and this has made me do the hollow gallows laugh, a couple of friends suggested the PDF thing after I’d already started quietly working on it. Responding ‘you’re never going to believe this but…’ is hardly ever convincing but I think I got away with it.

Anyway, for now – more proof-reading/editing, a little more drawing, and some quiet stitching. It’s been really enjoyable rediscovering some previous designs and working them up into samples.

I hope you’re enjoying your creative stitching too.

Have a lovely weekend.

April Threads

Hello, hope everyone had a good Easter break.

Some good news: there will be new threads in the shop later this week. 1,451 skeins of it, to be precise – yes, I counted – all wound and labelled by (my) hand.

At present when you visit the shop you will see all the thread listings are labelled ‘coming soon’ but that will change once the threads go live, probably midweek or so depending on how I get on. And I’ve just realised that midweek is tomorrow. The week has almost gone before it’s started.

Along with the good news, I’m afraid there’s some bad news. Royal Mail has increased their prices from today, and overseas shipping costs have increased by quite a lot. When I reviewed my shipping costs, I realised that I hadn’t been including the cost of packaging or the currency conversion fee, so in fact I’ve been undercharging for a few years on international postage. I’ve now rectified that, so you will notice the increase. As always, if the automated checkout overestimates your shipping cost, I will refund any overpayment. US customers, unfortunately your shipping is always going to be slightly higher than everyone else’s because it includes the 10% tariff.

It’s much more cost-effective to buy as much as you can at once, as you only pay the shipping cost once per order. Because postage costs are calculated by weight, up to 100g of thread costs the same to post as a single skein.

While we’re on the bad news I’m afraid there’s a bit more of it, for some. A few thread types are now discontinued so when the current batch is gone, they’re gone forever. The discontinued threads are fine cotton boucle, DMC stranded floss, and cotton perle 5.

Fabric packs are also discontinued and most are on sale, but there are still a few of those left so we’ll see how long they last.

Thank you, as always, for your kind support.

The sun is shining this morning, the buds are unfurling into new leaves, the birds are singing, and all is well.

Wishing everyone a lovely week ahead.

March 2026

Here we are, on the last day of March – a quarter of the year gone already.

There was a little basket of daffodils for St David on the first day…

… some flowers for Mothering Sunday…

…a shamrock for St Patrick…

… and equal day and night at the spring equinox

We changed the clocks here in the UK at the weekend, so we lose an hour that we’ll get back in October. It baffles me why we have to do this. I know there are the all the myths and arguments about lighter evenings etc, but evenings will get lighter whether we change the clocks or not because that’s what happens in summer. Maybe the human race thinks it has some sort of mastery over time because we can arbitrarily change what the clock says. I don’t always think of myself as entirely human, by the way.

In any case, it happens whatever I think, so I’m pretending it’s 1pm even though I *know* it’s only noon. There’s a video of today’s stitching on my YouTube channel today, if you’re interested.

In other news, I’m still grappling with threads, which will be in the shop after Easter. More on that later. Another reminder that the shop will close at noon (ish) on Thursday and will re-open after the Easter bank holidays.

Hope your week is going well.

Threads of my life

Still winding. From hanks…

… to skeins…

A few more still to do.

The shop will close for Easter on Thursday 2nd April and will re-open the following week, by which time I hope to have at least some of the new threads available.

In other news, there is Quite A Lot Going On besides work. I don’t generally say much about my personal life here, but some of you will know that I’m the primary carer for a parent with moderate to severe dementia. Occasionally I may have to close the shop randomly for a short time while I attend to issues or problems caused by their cognitive impairment. Sorry for any inconvenience caused by temporary absences, and thank you for your patience and understanding.

Comments are off today; this was just a quick update on where things are at right now. I am ok. Hope your week is going well.

Back to work

It wasn’t much of a week off in the end, because – surprise – this happened:

hand dyed threads drying in the sunshine

I just got lucky with the weather – decent light followed by a good drying day – so thought I would seize the day and all that. I’ll have a couple of easy days this week to make up for it.

I did manage to catch up with myself a bit on the other days. I got to the end of Tabula Rasa, and I’m not sure that’s its name any more but I’ve yet to think of a better one.

I also enjoyed a little mixed media sketchbook exploration with some motifs based on the stitching.

The thread will take a while to wind but in the meantime there is probably enough left in the shop to cover thread-based emergencies.

For various reasons, I’ve decided to streamline and simplify my shop contents. For the time being I won’t be making more fabric packs, so most remaining fabrics are currently in the shop on sale to clear. Prices have already been adjusted so you don’t need discount codes, and when they’re gone they’re gone so be quick if you’re interested. I hope you can find something lovely to add to your collection.

hand painted sheer fabric scraps for layering

Back to work after a holiday used to mean my apathetic return to the office where a thousand emails were waiting for me. These days back to work means winding beautiful thread by an open window listening to a robin singing in the garden. What luck. Hope your week is going well too.

Taking a short break

I’ll be taking a break soon so my online shop will close at lunchtime GMT (ish) on Wednesday 25th February and will reopen week commencing 9th March.

Teachable doesn’t seem to have a vacation mode, so that will remain open and accessible for online classes and PDF template downloads. If you need to contact me and it can’t wait a couple of weeks, please be patient because I won’t be checking emails every day.

There will probably be a daily stitching video on my YouTube channel tomorrow but after that I’m largely unplugging from social media for a week or so.

I’ll be having some quiet time at home, maybe working a bit on these:

Back in early March.

Karen Turner Stitching Life

Now playing

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Shrinking

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New PDFs for daily stitching

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April 2026

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Behind the scenes

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April Threads

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March 2026

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Threads of my life

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Back to work

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Taking a short break

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