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stitched landscape
Comments are off for this blog post (busy day ahead) but just wanted to share the article here.
My new mini-course on Teachable is now available here
Make your own Sketchbook course
Three very simple sketchbooks to make, plus lots of ideas and techniques on preparing and filling the pages with paint, collage, and simple mark-making.
My preference is always for making my own sketchbook rather than simply buying one. I often think bought sketchbooks have more pages than I can comfortably fill, and they also tend to get too full once you start sticking extra papers or stitched samples in them. If you make your own book, you can limit the number of pages from the beginning so that it’s not completely bursting at the seams when you’ve filled it.
The first book, the basic concertina/accordion fold book, is very simple – some might think simplistic, or a bit too simple – but I think it’s one of the most versatile fun little things you can create.
sample of concertina books
The zine-fold book – also very simple – is equally versatile, and offers lots of possibilities for some quick explorations.
zine-fold sketchbook
The third book in this little mini-course is a single signature stitched book with a wrap-around cover with integral pockets.
single signature sketchbook with painted pages (step-by-step tutorials for this)
You get to see lots of pages from my own sketchbooks, and you get some collage paper to print and download, plus some tag templates and some poetry lines to cut up and re-assemble.
see lots of my sketchbook pages
Special Early Bird price of £25.00, which will rise to £30.00 from 1st April. You don’t need to enter a code; just buy before the end of March for the lower price. It’s all pre-recorded, so you can start any time, download the lessons, watch as many times as you want for as long as you want. No time limits, no deadlines, just learn at your own pace.
It’s primarily aimed at beginners, but I’d like to think there’s something for most mixed media enthusiasts here.
Tools and supplies
This is the first in a series of short mixed media courses. Up next (and still working on it – for which read, ‘haven’t really started it yet’) will be paint your own collage papers plus mark-making tools and techniques for mixed media sketchbooks. That title might need some work, but I’m having lots of fun here this week. I hope you are too.
Always a short month, but this year it seems shorter than usual. I’m ending this month with an anniversary, as today is a year since we moved in to our current home.
Home
It’s taken a while for it to feel like home, but it does now and I’m looking forward to seeing our new garden grow a bit more this year. The seeds and ideas that we plant can take a while to yield visible results, and what starts as a scrap or fragment becomes part of something much bigger once it starts to grow. It all happens in its own time.
I’ve enjoyed using up scraps and odd ends this month.
circular form made with a scrap of silk fibrecurled spiral scrap of silk fibre
Running stitch, whipped running stitch, and couching are probably still my favourites. I like lines. Time lines, perhaps.
mid-February
Mostly it’s mark-making with needle and thread.
early February
There is a lovely darn on the edge of this linen, presumably made many years ago. I’m guessing this linen was probably hand-woven on a home loom because the width is much narrower than a machine-made sheet would be, and the selvedge that you can see beside the darn had originally been in the centre of the sheet where two widths had been joined. Someone, long ago and in a different home, carefully mended this cloth for the future, and their future is my present. Time does stand still sometimes.
mended
Holding time in stitches, weaving between past and future.
The long view:
February
And the other side:
the side we don’t show the world
Onward to March. Marching onward. See what I did there.
It’s a whole new adventure, and I’m not quite sure how or why it happened, but I appear to have set up my own YouTube channel.
My channel home page on YouTube
I’m in the process of uploading my Instagram short videos, and yesterday I made a video on starting a new sketchbook, which you can see here.
This one is a little square (ish) concertina folded sketchbook, with seven pages each side, which I’ve filled with collaged illustrations and found poetry cut from an old anthology.
I’ve made it in preparation for a forthcoming course in my Teachable school on making your own sketchbooks (yes?), and very enjoyable it’s been too.
I really like the way these simple folded sketchbooks become circular, where the end is also the beginning, so I’ve created this one on the theme of day and night revolving around each other.
If you saw the beginning of this little book, here’s how it turned out (ignore all the paint on my fingers, it’ll come off eventually):
mixed media sketchbook with found poetry
The text comes from various early twentieth-century poems and I’ve just cut out and rearranged the lines and phrases to create new poems.
Day and Night title pageDay, pages 2 & 3Day, pages 4 & 5Day, pages 6 & 7Night, title pageNight, pages 2 &3Night, pages 4 & 5Night, pages 6 & 7
Returning to the subject of YouTube, I’ll be keeping teaching and online courses on Teachable but I don’t mind sharing occasional processes and techniques on my YouTube channel.
So my next question is, what would you like to see?
I’ve been working on this sketchbook for a few weeks now, finding homes for all the tiny samples and scraps of painted paper and fabrics. At the same time I’m in the process of preparing to write a new course on mixed media/collage in sketchbooks, and I find it helps to actually make the thing you intend to teach.
handmade sketchbook, 9.5″ x 6.5″
I made the very simple sketchbook, using cartridge paper and some handmade cotton rag paper – it’s just sheets of paper stacked, folded in half, and stitched along the spine. The wrap around cover is cotton rag paper and it ties with some hand-dyed cotton tape that wraps around the button. Mixed media sketchbooks often become quite bulky because of all the inserts and layers, so it helps to bundle it up like this.
Sketchbooks are sometimes regarded as preparation for something larger, but I tend to see them as valuable and inspirational objects in themselves. I see them as a place to collect abstract thoughts in the form of shape and colour, and also as a place to try different colour combinations and design elements. Some of the designs in this book may or may not become larger works, and if they don’t then it’s enough to have them as they are in the sketchbook.
Here’s a quick flip-through. The pages are about 9″ x 6″ ish:
mixed media sketchbook pages
And a closer look (details are in the captions beneath the image):
strips of painted collage papers simple mark-making with thread on layered fabric scraps (4″ square)extra fold-out page
I don’t often write in sketchbooks like this one, but I do sometimes like to add a few words of text. I have an old poetry anthology that I cut up to make found poems. I know some people have strong feelings about cutting up books, but I only ever use very old books that have missing or damaged pages. The text serves to remind me of what I was thinking when I made the image, and sometimes it might also suggest the title of a larger work.
stitched sample with found poemcollage with painted papers and textstitched sample (about 5″ square) with simple mark-making
I like the way samples in different media can support and inform each other. The top sample on the page below was made by collecting and layering fabric scraps, and then the lower image is a collage inspired by the stitched sample.
from stitch to collageinside back cover, handmade foam stamps and simple drawn grid
As I’m currently taking a temporary break from Instagram, I have a bit more time to focus on structuring the new course. It generally takes a month or more to put one together and I’m still at the thinking-it-through stage, so there’s a fair way to go. But watch this space.
No stitching whatsoever in this post. I’ve been a little distracted recently by this beautiful vintage Sid Cooke Georgian shop kit. This is purely for my own amusement, by the way. In a past life I made one-twelfth scale miniatures and it’s been fun to reconnect with my younger self, though I notice my eyesight isn’t quite as good as it was then.
The kit is basically a box with a hinged front, about 12″ wide, 9″ deep and 9″ tall.
Sid Cooke Georgian shop kit
The front is almost finished, apart from a bit more weathering on the stucco (paint, glue, and a little sand).
Georgian shop front
The columns and step are made from wood, sanded and painted to look like old stone.
front, detail
The shop door that comes with the kit is a little chunky to be properly in scale, but I think there’s no harm in having an extra-thick shop door. I guess that makes it more secure for the tiny owner. It’s glazed with perspex and the letterbox opens.
shop door
I’ve opted for a modern-day shop selling vintage items because I still have some tiny treasures from when I had a larger doll’s house a few years ago. I’ll probably paint some of the furniture to make it a bit more contemporary.
previous doll’s house, set in around 1900
The benefit of ‘vintage’ is that you can make pretty much anything from any era and it will all sit quite happily together.
shop sign and fascia with glazed bow window
The interior is about ready to be filled. I made a false wall for the back, with a back door and a set of recessed shelves (all made from foam core and mountboard) to stop it looking so ‘boxy’. The glazing in the back door is graph paper with a layer of tracing paper on top to make it look like frosted safety glass. The door handle is a bit of thick armature wire. I would wire lights if it were a larger house, but just for this little box I’m using a couple of LED battery lights. The coving and skirting board come as lengths that you can cut to size.
shop interior
I’ll make a shop counter to sit alongside the shelving at the back. The shelves are mostly full of shop paperwork, lever arch files, and a couple of ornaments.
recessed shelving
It’s a lot of fun. The problem is that now I’ve started it, I have to finish it to the point where I can sit the whole thing on a shelf, and then I can make the contents in stages whenever I have a spare hour or two. I only have one work surface in my (real-life) room, and while this is all spread out (along with paint, brushes, wood glue, saw, sandpaper, etc) there isn’t space to get on with anything else. That’s my excuse, anyway.
January can be a long month for many, particularly if you don’t like winter, but for me it flew by as quickly as any other.
January daily stitching
As always, it was a case of threading a needle and beginning, with no preconception of how it might turn out. There are some blocks I like less than others, but that’s to be expected with this make-it-up-as-you-go approach. It doesn’t matter whether I like it or not. It’s there as a witness to the impermanence of human time.
January daily stitching, detail
As always, I’ve used a variety of silk and cotton threads in different weights, from chunky boucle yarns to very fine silk. Life’s rich tapestry, and all that.
January, detail
The earliest days of January feel quite far away now, but they’re not so distant in the great scheme of things. We’re now as far from early January as we are from the end of February, which is probably a sobering thought. By that time, one-sixth of the year will be behind us.
early January
Time is always running faster than I am. It’s not so much a question of trying to catch up, it’s more an acceptance of the fact that there probably isn’t enough time to do everything I want to do. Tasks take longer as you get older, I find.
Today’s block is a spiral, couched in cotton perle 8 thread.
31st January
I always think of time as a spiral, with us travelling from the outer circles towards the centre throughout our lives. I think that’s why time seems interminable when you’re a child, and why it seems to speed up as you get older. It doesn’t, it’s just that the circular paths are a little shorter every year.
As far as the daily stitching is concerned, time is a long strip of linen. February, and the rest of the year, are ahead.
February and the rest
For anyone who has been disappointed by the news that my Facebook group (Stitching Life Community) will be closing shortly, there has been a surprise reprieve. Shannon has developed a new group for hand stitchers (daily stitching and more): Our Daily Thread. What a perfectly brilliant name for a hand stitching group (I wish I’d thought of it!) It’s a fabulous way to keep our lovely community together so you can continue to connect and share your wonderful work.
And a postscript for any new subscribers – three blog posts in one week is not my usual standard. Normal services (once a week, if that) will now be resumed.
I’m completely delighted to be included in this brand new publication by Brodie Marshall at UTAY
Feature in Volume 1 of UTAY (Under the Ancient Yew)UTAY Vol. 1UTAY Vol. 1
It’s one of the most beautiful magazines I’ve ever seen. It’s more like a book, really, and I will treasure my copy. The text and images create a meandering path through ancient wisdom: finding connections to our buried past, learning from the folklore and stories of places and times, and considering how we might live creatively in the modern world while remaining aware of and rooted in our natural environment and origins. The production and design are stunning, and it holds a wealth of talent in its pages – artists specialising in drawing, photography, poetry, printing, textiles, illustration, and more.
front cover, Volume 1
I understand this volume is sold out (and I’m not surprised, given how beautiful it is) but you can contact Brodie to find out how to pre-order forthcoming issues.
You can find the list of contributors to this issue here:
Apologies for a housekeeping post today that is big on words and small on pictures.
I’m decreasing my online presence, mainly to reduce and streamline the number of places I need to manage.
I am keeping my accounts on Teachable (for online teaching), Big Cartel (for threads, fabrics and PDFs), and the website/blog (here) for general progress reports and updates.
homes
I’m currently in the process of moving away from Meta. I’ll be deleting my Facebook page shortly, along with Threads (on Instagram). I’ve issued an invitation to members of my Facebook group (Stitching Life Community) to see if anyone would like to take on the admin role so that the group can stay open. I’m not particularly optimistic that anyone will want to take it on, so I’m prepared for the possibility that the group will close as well. Other slow stitch/hand embroidery/textiles groups are available, of course. At some point I will also move away from Instagram.
I’ve set up a new account on Blue Sky for quick posts and pictures of daily stitching etc, so if you’re already there do come and say hello.
I did say a few weeks ago that 2025 would be the year of less. I hadn’t entirely foreseen this, but I do feel a little more comfortable about being in fewer places at once.
