Carpe Diem Intro

I guess this is another one of those **SQUIRREL** projects that the internet keeps tempting me with.  But I'm an old dog, and I'm not sure how many of them I'm actually going to chase after 😉 

 Anyway, recently a new textile artist came up on my Instagram feed suggestion thingie.  Karen Turner is a UK textile artist involved with various stitchery, dying and quiltmaking endeavors.  Her daily stitch journal for 2022 was what really caught my eye -- a continuous scroll of embroidery capturing her entire year, 95" long!!!

As it turns out, she had just created a Facebook group for stitchers who might be interested in undertaking a similar project for 2023.  I was inspired by all the members who were beginning embroidered journals for the new year and have been considering whether it might be a good project for me as well.  

A quick dive into my bottomless-pit-fabric-stash brought up a yardage length of neutral loose-weave cotton, decades old, that seems just right to stitch on.  This fabric used to be called kettle cloth, and I don't think it's even being manufactured anymore.  I'm not especially inclined to the very long narrow format that Karen used for her original journal, but I'm just going to start freeform stitching and see what happens.

  I've decided to call my embroidered journal Carpe Diem, suggesting that I'm trying to capture something about each day -- a mood, an activity, the weather, current events, whatever. If it all fizzles out after a bit, so be it.  Not sure anyway what my future holds, so a vague plan for this project is an especially accurate representation of that. 

I'll be back with this in a few days to share what's happening.

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