Tag: textile art

And here we are, the end of the year already.

365 blocks of hand embroidery, one every day for twelve months, each stitch witnessing the passage of time.

Time is all we have, and time is all that we are. We have time, we make time, we find time, we save time, we spare time, we waste time, we spend time. We are time.

This year’s stitching is about 7″ wide and 122″ long, cotton and silk embroidery threads on vintage cotton/linen blend.

People ask me what will I do with it. I don’t ‘do’ anything with it. It’s enough for it to be itself, a surface onto which I have inscribed time with needle and thread, a cloth I have held in my hands every day for a year, a cloth that holds and remembers moments from my life. The cloth will still be here when I am not.

New Year’s Eve is a time for a final glance back, over our shoulder, before we move unsteadily forward into more of the unknown.

Of course this is not the end, nor is it a new beginning. It’s just the continuation of time. Tomorrow is only ever the day after today, when we gather ourselves to begin again.

Happy new year to you all, and happy stitching if you’re embarking on a new stitch adventure for 2026.

You can find my daily stitching PDF templates here, information about pre-printed fabric from Spoonflower here, and information about my online classes here. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel here for occasional daily stitching videos.

Another month completed and only the last quarter of the year left.

As always, there’s no plan at all – just thread a needle and begin. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but that’s how life is. I don’t judge the daily stitching; it is what it’s meant to be, however it turns out.

As usual, it’s mostly straight stitch and running stitch in various guises. Life is complicated enough at the moment.

There were poppies for my mother’s birthday earlier this month.

Today is a few back stitch squiggles. Two steps forward, one step back, a path that loops back on itself sometimes but still gets to where it’s headed eventually. Taking the scenic route, perhaps.

The other side is just another kind of perspective on where we’ve been.

And October tomorrow…

Onward and maybe upward. Most paths lead somewhere.

I’ll be back later this week with what I hope might be good news for those of you in the USA. 😎

And here we are again, another month down. Time, in thread on linen.

In the old Celtic calendar, the beginning of Autumn is Lammas on 1st August, signifying first harvest (grain). Second harvest (fruit) is around the autumn equinox in mid-September, and third harvest (nuts and seeds) is the end of October, at the start of winter. There is always much exasperated hilarity in our house when the Met Office refers to ‘false autumn’ on its weather reports as the leaves are starting to fall. That’s because it’s real autumn, we cry in unison. It may be still warm and sunny, but weather is not season. You only have to look at the changes in the light, in the air, in nature itself, to see and feel the signs of early autumn. This is my usual northern hemisphere bias, of course, because this is where I live. If you’re in the southern hemisphere, you’ll be enjoying the beginning of spring.

Probably enough meteorological ranting.

You can probably see the change in the colour palette. More muted golds/browns/reds/purples.

The light isn’t great this morning in my north-facing work room. The morning sun is no longer quite reaching me – another clear sign of the turning season.

I’m enjoying the occasional ovals and cross-quarters on this year’s template.

As always, it looks far more complex than it really is. It’s mostly variations on straight stitch and running stitch, with a bit of blanket stitch, chain stitch, fly stitch and herringbone stitch thrown in. The edges of each daily section are mostly couched, usually silk boucle yarn or other textured yarns. Nothing very difficult here at all.

So on we go into September. I’m currently working on a sample to road-test the new template for 2026 – so far so good, I think, and I’m already quite excited about stitching it for real next year. The template will be available (probably) from early November; more on that later. Stay tuned 🙂

I hope you’ve enjoyed your own August daily stitching, if this is your thing. Have a lovely Sunday.

I say it every month, but where does it go? Blink and you miss it. Time just escapes, scampering out through a door that can’t be shut.

Today is just herringbone stitch, which looks deceptively complicated (it isn’t) when worked in close rows like this:

As always, the stitching is very simple: mostly running stitch and straight stitch in various combinations.

There is a seam where I had to join two strips of linen. I like the fact that it’s visible but not too obvious. One year (not next year, that’s already planned) I will work the daily stitching on lots of patched and joined pieces.

As always, it’s a kind of map. Setting out, hoping for the best and finding a path through each day.

There is never a plan for the stitching. Choose a colour, thread a needle, and begin. See where it goes.

August ahead:

The blue thing you can see in the top left corner is the simple bag I keep it in. I made a sample of the template when I first designed it and then I stitched it to the front of a hand-dyed cotton drawstring bag.

The back has a single motif:

If you want to begin a similar daily practice, take a look at my online course here – you can watch as many times as you like, you can download the videos, and you get lifetime access (lifetime effectively means as long as I’m alive, or as long as I stay with Teachable, the platform that hosts my classes).

Happy stitching!