Karen Turner Stitching Life textile artist stitching by hand

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.

Threads update

A (very) small update this week with a few extra threads for the shop.

Limited quantity of Random threads collections

What’s currently in the shop is all I have until later in the spring, so when it’s gone it’s gone.

silk threads, limited quantities remaining

I hope to have a dyeing day next month – or even later this month, if we get lucky with the weather. I need good light and a couple of decent drying days, so let’s see what the weather gods bring us. After dyeing it’ll be a few weeks of winding and labelling skeins, so I’m aiming for new thread in the shop by late March/early April.

In the meantime I’m finding time for a few quilting/couching/stitching lines on the quilt.

Hope your week is going well.

Studio time

My new year’s resolution to work smarter seems to be going well, and for the first time in years I find that I do in fact have some time for my own work as well as the business.

I did a little more on the winter sketchbook. It may be early spring, and the snowdrops are looking beautiful, but the weather is decidedly behind the curve so I feel justified in clinging to glorious cold winter for as long as I can.

winter sketchbook page with found poetry lines

winter sketchbook page, mixed media collage

winter sketchbook page, handmade paper collage

I’m also trying to be a bit more organised about what goes where. My Ikea drawers are very slightly short of A4 size in the width, so I made some custom trays out of mount board and they fit nicely, two per drawer.

mark-making tools, rounded up and contained

The sides are covered with 2″ wide washi tape that I found hiding in another drawer. I should probably line the boxes to make them prettier but for now I’m happy enough with functional.

stencils and collagraphs all neat and tidy

And finally, I’ve resurrected a patchwork quilt top that’s had quite a few false starts.

I had a look at it, wasn’t happy with it, and decided to unpick everything and start again. I wanted a fairly big circle on the surface and didn’t have a yarn that was anything like what I had in mind.

I’ve ended up stringing lots of thin threads together to create something like what I wanted. It’s a very fine silk noil yarn that dyed beautifully but is no good for stitching with – breaks too easily, too nobbly – but a few strands together are couching down quite nicely.

I’m wondering if maybe the whole thing will be couched rather than quilted. Always an adventure.

Hope your week is going well.

January 2026

Time flies. The first month of daily stitching for 2026 is complete, and the cloth fills up almost on its own while we’re looking the other way.

There were early days

There were cold sparkly frosty days

And in-between days

New for this year are YouTube videos of daily stitching. Definitely not every day but maybe once or twice a week, when I can. I have some responsibilities at present, and much depends on how much of that needs my attention.

For now, we go onward into February

And some snowdrops for Imbolc

If you’re having your own daily stitching adventure this year, I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am. This is my fifth year, and it’s still just as necessary and enjoyable as it ever was. I think of it as a little oasis of peace in an increasingly turbulent world.

Zero waste collage tags

Firstly: I’m delighted to report that the biodegradable nitrile gloves have completely solved the problem. I’d expected to lose some dexterity with gloves on, but if you get the correct size they fit really well and you hardly notice them.

So hurrah for that.

If you’ve ever ordered any tangible items from my Big Cartel shop, you’ll probably have received one of my hand-painted thank you tags.

Stocks of these are running a bit low, as you can see. Instead of cutting into new sheets of watercolour paper I thought I’d use up a collection of cartridge paper/card offcuts that weren’t suitable for taking paint but were fine for collage.

Using the painted paper offcuts from last week’s sketchbook collage fest, plus a few more colourful tiny scraps, I’ve used almost every last bit of everything. It’s very satisfying to create something out of what we might call nothing – though everything is something – and hardly anything going in the bin or recycling.

Collage on this scale is very easy, and a simple process. Mini-landscapes at their most basic are just horizontal strips of colour, and they can look very effective with some straightforward mark-making or stamping. I used a corner rounder punch to shape the tops.

I haven’t counted them but there’s possibly a couple of hundred here, enough to keep us all in thank you tags for a while yet.

And finally, while I had all the collage supplies out on the table: I’m taking part again in the annual Postcard Art Exhibit, held this year in the Netherlands in June and raising money for people affected by Alzheimer’s. There’s still plenty of time if you want to contribute a 5″ x 7″ artwork to be sold for this year’s charity. Go to https://www.postcardartexhibit.com before mid-March to register.

‘When you were there’ – 5″ x 7″ mixed media collage with found poetry

Karen Turner Stitching Life

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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Threads update

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Studio time

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January 2026

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Zero waste collage tags

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