In a daily sewing project, Karen Turner sews a visual journal in vividly textured patterns – Colossal



Arts and crafts

#Karen Turner #sewing #textiles

From newspaper paintings and watercolor scenes to narrative photographs and wildly handled mugs, everyday projects have continually captured our attention for their ritualistic nature, dedication, and ability to build creative stamina. East Yorkshire-based artist Karen Turner has spent the last year in the midst of her own routine involving a long strip of vintage fabric and colorful hand-sewn patterns.

Turner started what became her Intuitive everyday sewing project in January 2022 as she hoped to bring more mindfulness into her daily life. The idea was to fill in a few centimeters on a simple angular grid with whatever design came to mind, creating a textured quilt that was also “a visual representation of time passing,” she says. “The older I get, the faster time seems to pass, and I wanted to connect with that sense of time passing and consciously notice a few minutes each day.”

For the 2022 iteration, Turner worked on a single sheet of métis, a blend of cotton and linen, stitching undulating stripes, dense intersecting lines and radial patterns. Now complete, the piece spans a staggering 95 inches, highlighting the changes in the artist’s emotions, impulses and aesthetic sensibilities over the months.

In this year’s edition, Turner moved to a more book-like structure with multiple pages and a cover to emphasize the diaristic nature of the project. She explains:

I sometimes think sewing is more like writing than drawing, in that you can often identify an embroiderer’s work the same way you would recognize their handwriting on an envelope. In this way, the dot journal works much like a personal diary, although it records more abstract thoughts and feelings rather than events. I think of fabric and knits as witnesses to this part of my life and carriers of a fragment of time.

For those who want to create their own daily sewing journal, Turner sells their monthly patterns and offers an online course in the practice. You can read more about the project on its site and follow updates on Instagram.

#Karen Turner #sewing #textiles

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