Embroidery Journaling
Since January 2020, Sophie O’Neill has been keeping an embroidery journal. Each day, she sews an “icon” to represent that day’s events and memories.
“I embroider an icon every day,” Sophie says. “So at the end of this year, I’ll have 366 icons.”
The 29-year-old has now embroidered more than 1,800 one-pence-coin-sized symbols to represent every stage of her life over the past five years.
A self-taught sewer, she picked up the craft in 2019 when looking for a new hobby.
But as for her embroidery journal, Sophie said: “I had just started a new job and I thought it would be a really cool way to track everything I learned throughout the year.”
Little did she know, several years later, she would have embroidered icons to document moving from California to Glasgow, starting her business and buying a house, among others.
O’Neill also keeps track of the books she reads by filling in an embroidered bookshelf. You can keep up with her activities on The Stir-Crazy Crafter and Instagram. If you’d like to try your hand at embroidery journaling, O’Neill sells a kit on Etsy.
Comments 1
I started a stitch journal this week too. I only just started embroidering a few months ago this seemed like a good project. I picked up a linen table runner at a thrift store and I’ve divided it into 12 sections for the months, and I’ll spend a bit of time each day stitching a little pattern or a symbol of some sort to note the day. I thought it was a brilliant idea when I first saw it. K J Turner us another interesting stitch journaled to check out.
Hello! In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!
In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. Check out your options for renewal.
This is the name that'll be displayed next to comments you make on kottke.org; your email will not be displayed publicly. I'd encourage you to use your real name (or at least your first name and last initial) but you can also pick something that you go by when you participate in communities online. Choose something durable and reasonably unique (not "Me" or "anon"). Please don't change this often. No impersonation.
Note: I'm letting folks change their display names because the membership service that kottke.org uses collects full names and I thought some people might not want their names displayed publicly here. If it gets abused, I might disable this feature.
If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a look at it.
Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!