stitch journal textile artist, stitching by hand, thread, embroidery, stitch journal

September

Immediately on writing today’s title I’ve given myself an Earth Wind and Fire ear worm (🎶 …ba-dee-ya, say do you remember, ba-dee-ya, dancin’ in September… 🎶) and now you have it too, I hope.

Aaanyway. It flew by, as usual.

I really like the variety of shapes on this year’s template. Originally it was meant to look like an aerial view of fields, but it’s probably turned out to be a bit too colourful for that. If anyone has restricted themselves to a brown/green palette throughout, they might be having more luck with the realism. I still like it as it is though.

I’ve used a variety of thicker yarns and threads for the borders (field boundaries, I call them) – mostly cotton and silk boucle, plus a few scraps of textured yarns that I’ve found in the threads box. For the one below, I used some viscose hollow ribbon (from Oliver Twists fibres) stuffed with yarn. It’s fairly easy to thread yarn through the hollow centre with a big blunt needle or a small safety pin. Once it’s stuffed, you can ruche the ribbon up a bit and it creates a lovely ruffled effect.

My favourite this month is probably this one, worked without any kind of plan, just meandering backstitch stems and detached chain stitch leaves, in hand-dyed silk perle 12:

The other side is a little quieter than the front, which is true for most of us, I think.

October tomorrow… and before we know it, it will be the end of another year. If you’re starting to think about (whisper it) _^Christmas there are threads available here.

I’m starting to think about next year’s template and so far am drawing a complete blank. I’ve enjoyed making the previous three, as a scroll, a cloth book, and a large cloth. I may well return to the long thin format as I really like the continuous stretch of days, long like a year, but I’ll give it some more thought.

Priority this week is to try and find someone who can fix our boiler because currently we have No Heating. Good job we have plenty of knitwear and quilts.

August

Eight months down, four to go. Each month seems to vanish faster than the last.

As always, no plan, no design. Just pick up a threaded needle and start stitching.

In the traditional Celtic calendar, autumn begins with Lammas on the 1st of August. The weather presenters will have us believe it’s still summer because it’s warm and the sun is shining. But weather is not season, and here in the UK you can see the light changing throughout August, and by the end of the month you can smell and feel autumn as well as see it.

I really like the softer muted colours that come with autumn and winter, and I’ll enjoy choosing some of them for the rest of the year.

Thread winding is still very much ongoing in preparation for the shop update some time next month, and the advantage for me is that I get to replenish some of my own threads too.

I also like to road-test them to check the quality. I’ve got a couple of new suppliers this time so I need to satisfy myself that the threads are up to it. Very happy so far.

end of August – road-testing new threads

August wouldn’t be complete without a view of the other side. The side we don’t show the world, the side we don’t choose to look at, the side that makes us what we are. Whether we like it or not, it’s there and it’s got nothing to hide. As always, I like some of these marks better from the back. One of these days I will turn the stitch journal over, stitch on the back and let the ‘wrong’ side be on show.

We’re having our bathroom renovated next week. I’m kind of dreading the upheaval, the noise, the mess, the dust, etc but very much looking forward to a long soak in a hot bath when it’s all over. I’m not sure how much the disruption will slow down the thread winding, but I’ll do my best to keep up.

July

How quickly the days pass.

There were (and still are) some hot days. Many weather forecasters in this country are jubilant every time the sun is shining as they announce the arrival of more ‘lovely’ weather. They’ve taken to describing 28 degrees (which for this part of the UK is very unusual) as ‘warm’. Only a few years ago the same temperature would have been described as ‘very hot’. There hasn’t been any rain for several weeks, which is also unusual for this part of the UK. I try to stay away from getting too overtly political here but global warming worries me, and I find this normalising of rising temperatures by the mainstream media to be particularly alarming.

I find myself uncharacteristically short of patience in hot weather; I’m not good at tolerating extreme heat and very bright sunlight. Thank goodness for autumn waiting around the corner and the return of darker nights. I caught the faintest whiff of autumn early yesterday morning, and soon the light will begin to change.

In the meantime of course I keep going, because this is life and there is joy in every day. The joy might not always be immediately visible on the surface, but it’s there nevertheless just waiting to be found.

There was a funeral this month for our friend. A day edged with sadness but filled with happy memories of an amazing woman and a talented artist. We are so lucky to have known her during her long life.

July detail – a day edged with sadness but filled with the joy of remembering

Sometimes if there’s a bit of border yarn left over I curl it around in the corner as you can see below. A kind Instagram reader commented that it looks like a Koru (I had to look it up) which symbolises harmony and eternal movement, and how lovely is that.

The other side isn’t always that neat, but then I think neat can be over-rated.

I’m immersed in the creation of video lessons at present for my new paper-pieced patchwork course. It’s slow going but I think it will be ok in the end, as most things are.

June

Just like that.

Halfway through the year already. How did that happen?

The aerial map is filling up so quickly.

June days:

I really like the way the days are such different shapes on this year’s template. It feels like life. Some days feel longer or wider than others; some days have sharp corners; some days have crossing paths. Some days feel like running just to stand still.

Some days were too hot.

Every day, as always, just choosing thread and colour, letting stitches fall wherever they land. Marking the passage of time.

Today we can see the back of June.

And tomorrow, July. Between times, the cloth lives in this cover. Part embroidery, part patchwork. If you missed it, you can read about the making of the cover here

May

The last day of May and another monthly block complete on this year’s stitch journal, marking time and witnessing the passage of days.

May always feels like quite a long month to me but they all fly by in the end.

No real plan, as always. Just threading a needle and placing a few stitches every day. Watching what happens.

Some of the stitches end up looking like footprints. Which is just what they are, really. Steps along tracks and paths that lead somewhere.

People often ask about the curly/loopy stitching around the edge of some of the blocks. It’s just silk boucle yarn couched down with a fine thread. Nice effect with very little effort.

I’m easing into a more summery palette for this middle section of the year.

As usual, I don’t always like every single block. It doesn’t matter. Each block only functions as a witness; it doesn’t have to be beautiful. We can’t undo the moments or go back in time and change the past, which is why I don’t ever unpick the stitches I don’t like. It is what it is, we acknowledge its faults, and we move on. As soon as each stitch is completed, it becomes part of the past and therefore can’t be altered. It can be very therapeutic to accept the imperfections.

The other side always interests me. In some cases I prefer it.

June is waiting for me to meet her tomorrow.

April

I say it every time, but where does it go?

This year’s overall plan was for it to look something like an aerial view of fields, a visual depiction of time and space. Each block is time taking up space, a few stitches marking the minutes that make up a life as well as a dimensional area on the cloth.

I don’t generally set out to depict ‘an event’ or anything representing what happened that day. It’s usually just a few stitches to mark the passing of that time.

It’s not meant to be a way of remembering the minutiae of daily life, but a bigger picture of the way time (mostly) passes without us even noticing. It’s the opposite of ‘wasting time’, if there can be such a thing. It’s about noticing and honouring time, because time is what allows us to be present here and now.

April detail, random swirly back stitch with silk perle 8

And really there’s no such thing as ‘now’. As soon as you’ve formed the concept of ‘now’ the moment has passed, to be replaced by another, different moment. And you can’t grasp that one either before it disappears to be replaced by another. The moments continue, if we’re lucky, for some years until they cease. Time really is all we have, from our limited human perspective. It’s days in a life, unbelievably fragile yet tenacious.

I don’t know anything about cosmic time, or astrophysics, or geographical time, but I do know time definitely seems to speed up as you get older. Stitching it down doesn’t make any difference, but I suppose it probably makes me feel a bit better about it. I still don’t know where it goes.

If you’re interested in learning how to make something similar, my online course is available here.

March

And that was March. We’ve already lost an hour today here in the UK for British summer time so time is flying a little faster this weekend.

As always, a little stitching every day. Just to catch the moments and tie them down somehow, so they don’t fly away unnoticed.

91 days of 2024 and the top third of this vintage linen cloth is filling up nicely:

April lies ahead. The blankness of the space for the future always startles me a little.

I like to keep the back of the work accessible so that I can see where I’ve been. Sometimes I like it better than the front.

Next month I think it will be time to make the Janet Clare artisan apron. I got the pattern and planned to start on it late last year but the house move got in the way. I’ll have a look for some suitable fabrics in my collection and will share my progress once I get going.

In the meantime, today is a family day at home enjoying the rest of this bank holiday weekend.

February

There were many ups and downs, but February brought us the new home for which we’ve been waiting.

Most of the month was spent fretting, phoning estate agents and solicitors, and preparing.

Moving day itself was something I never want to experience again. We ended up having to exchange contracts and complete on the same day, which didn’t exactly go according to plan but we did finally get our keys at just gone 4pm. And here we are at last – it could have been worse, and in a few days the stress and fatigue will be just a memory.

Want to see my new work room? Here it is:

We’ve been focusing on sorting the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom so that we can function while we attend to the rest of the unpacking, so neither of us has unpacked our work spaces yet. My room is about 11 feet square, slightly bigger than in our last house. It’s north facing so will be cooler in the summer with more consistent light, and the view is mostly the surrounding back gardens. Our garden is tiny, but relatively private.

My room also has fitted wardrobes on one wall:

Easily adaptable for thread and fabric storage. My first job will be to paint the walls, and possibly the floor – there is a very dark red/pink carpet, which I don’t like. Dark flooring tends to absorb a lot of light, which means you can’t always see colours as they really are. I’d like to paint the floor white, if the floorboards are good enough. If they’re not then I’ll think about a pale laminate floor instead.

You can see it will be a while before I can return to work, so the shop will remain closed for now. I’ve been looking forward to this since October and I want to enjoy organising it so I’ll take the time to get it right. It will take as long as it takes.

Beginnings (part one)

It takes time, I find, to get to know a new cloth before you can do the right thing for it. The new stitch journal for 2024 feels very different from the previous two years, despite being exactly the same vintage French linen. The main difference is its shape. It’s exactly the same size and scale – i.e. twelve A4 pages – but setting the monthly pages in a 3 x 4 grid formation is making it feel ‘bigger’ somehow.

As always, I don’t plan any day’s design in advance; it just happens in the moment. Sometimes that means unintentionally stitching something I end up not liking much. I’m not keen on the raincloud, for instance. The advantage of intuitive stitching is that it really doesn’t matter whether you like what you’ve stitched or not, nor does it matter if the stitches are wonky or irregular sizes. Some days it just is what it is. The point of it is to record time mindfully, so there’s no need to worry about how it turns out. And definitely no need to unpick.

If you’re following my 2024 template, you can of course stitch the blocks in whatever order you choose. Personally I prefer each day to share a border with the previous and next blocks, so that they form a continuous stream of time.

I made a short video of yesterday’s stitch, weaving a new path between rows of herringbone stitch:

weaving between other stitches

And I’m also working on some other new beginnings, more of which later.

2024: Day One

Happy New Year.

One day ends and a new one begins in the unbroken chain of time that makes up our life. It really doesn’t matter what day you begin this kind of practice; all the days join up regardless of the occasion.

This year I’m using my 2024 template, which I’m imagining as a kind of map of the year. I sometimes think if life came with a map we’d probably all get to where we want to be a lot more efficiently. But I guess efficiency isn’t everything and I’m glad I ended up taking the long way round – the scenic route, I suppose we might call it.

As always, there is no plan apart from the template; each day will decide for itself what it wants to be. This practice, for me, has always been about witnessing the passage of time rather than marking events or occasions. I don’t often feel the need to remember what happened on a given day; it’s enough to know that I acknowledged the time passing.

I have no idea how this cloth will look by the end of December, but then I have no idea how my life will look by then either. It will be a voyage of discovery and an adventure as always.

I’m using the same vintage metis (linen/cotton blend) as the last two years. You can often find this kind of fabric online by searching for vintage metis, or vintage French bed sheet. I’ve only just noticed that I’ve left it in its natural state, whereas last year I dipped it in tea to dull the whiteness a little. I’ve marked my outlines with plain old biro, because I know all the lines will be covered. If you’re stitching along and (for example) you want to leave gaps between the blocks, then you will want to use a less obtrusive method for marking out your daily sections.

To begin, I’ve done a very simple whipped running stitch in perle 12 cotton and silk, with a fine textured yarn couched around the edge, to suggest a ploughed field ready for sowing some seeds.

day one: running stitch in cotton, whipped with silk thread

I’m easing back into work-mode from tomorrow and will be thinking about all the seeds of ideas that might take root. I hope some wildflowers blow in as well.

Category: stitch journal

September

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August

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July

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June

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May

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April

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March

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February

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Beginnings (part one)

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2024: Day One

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