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Marking Time with Fabric and Thread: Calendars, Diaries, and Journals within Your Fiber Craft
Unlock daily creativity with this guide for recording time by using fiber craft, from renowned weaver and educator Tommye McClure Scanlin
Foreword by weaver and artist Sarah C. Swett
Using weaving, stitching, quilting, or other fiber arts every day to better notice the passing of time offers you more than an arresting artwork. In fact, a creative daily practice transforms your making and is likely to become one of your favorite parts of the day. But time is complicated, so how to begin?
Renowned tapestry weaver Tommye McClure Scanlin answers that question for all makers who love working with fabric, fibers, and textiles. Well known for her tapestry diaries, she explores with you how to capture your own time in your artwork.
• Enables fiber crafters of any kind to start and successfully benefit from a personal daily practice.
• Packed with practical ideas, in text and photos, for making a personal fiber art calendar, journal, or diary.
• Dozens of prompts to ward off the largest feeling creatively “stuck.”
• Stories from more than 25 makers explain the benefits of daily practice, sharing inspiring photos of their finished “time capsule” pieces.
• Fascinating facts and history, including why we humans have the urge to mark time visually.
• Foreword by weaver and beloved blogger Sarah C. Swett reminds us of the mix of adrenaline and power that’s available to fiber crafters who truly realize that everything they make is an attempt to capture time.
Praise for Marking Time with Fabric and Thread...
“Incredibly inspiriting. The art practices, and sentiments shared by the artists, are heartfelt and will convince anyone who reads them to consider launching a personal daily practice...and the value of a regular, contemplative practice can’t be underestimated.”
—Jane Dunnewold, author, artist, and founder of the Creative Strength Training community
“This book emphasizes to readers that threads can function as text. The artists featured here demonstrate how their unique visions and memories unite with their mastery of complex structures and processes.”
—Virginia Gardner Troy, PhD, Professor of Art History, Berry College
Foreword by weaver and artist Sarah C. Swett
Using weaving, stitching, quilting, or other fiber arts every day to better notice the passing of time offers you more than an arresting artwork. In fact, a creative daily practice transforms your making and is likely to become one of your favorite parts of the day. But time is complicated, so how to begin?
Renowned tapestry weaver Tommye McClure Scanlin answers that question for all makers who love working with fabric, fibers, and textiles. Well known for her tapestry diaries, she explores with you how to capture your own time in your artwork.
• Enables fiber crafters of any kind to start and successfully benefit from a personal daily practice.
• Packed with practical ideas, in text and photos, for making a personal fiber art calendar, journal, or diary.
• Dozens of prompts to ward off the largest feeling creatively “stuck.”
• Stories from more than 25 makers explain the benefits of daily practice, sharing inspiring photos of their finished “time capsule” pieces.
• Fascinating facts and history, including why we humans have the urge to mark time visually.
• Foreword by weaver and beloved blogger Sarah C. Swett reminds us of the mix of adrenaline and power that’s available to fiber crafters who truly realize that everything they make is an attempt to capture time.
Praise for Marking Time with Fabric and Thread...
“Incredibly inspiriting. The art practices, and sentiments shared by the artists, are heartfelt and will convince anyone who reads them to consider launching a personal daily practice...and the value of a regular, contemplative practice can’t be underestimated.”
—Jane Dunnewold, author, artist, and founder of the Creative Strength Training community
“This book emphasizes to readers that threads can function as text. The artists featured here demonstrate how their unique visions and memories unite with their mastery of complex structures and processes.”
—Virginia Gardner Troy, PhD, Professor of Art History, Berry College
- GenresArtNonfiction
198 pages, Hardcover
Published October 28, 2024
3 people are currently reading
17 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 13, 2024
I was fourteen when I started keeping a daily journal. I got away from it in college, but started it up again in my twenties. When our son was born, I kept a journal about his first years. When I saw Marking Time, I thought what a wonderful idea it is to use one’s fiber craft to document the passing days!
Tommye Scanlin enjoys the slowness of tapestry weaving. She realized that she was “weaving to the passing of time” and wondered if the process could be employed to represent time. “What if I made a tapestry with each day as a separate, distinct part?” she asked.
Tommye searched for other artists with a daily practise. She discovered a weaver who documented her emotional state over a time of crisis. Other artists documented the weather. Some incorporated coded messages. She asked these artists to talk about their motivation and process.
The resulting book is an inspiring exploration of new ways to use craft for self-expression–documenting one’s internal life, the world around us, and the passing of time.
Most of the artists are weavers, but others work in embroidery, quilting, and mixed media,
Roan Haug is an artist who has a “deep appreciation for traditional domestic arts, especially that of quilting. Her quilt All My Quiet Moments includes traditional yo-yos and paper piecing hexagons, hand piecing, and French knots.
I love how she used the sheer fabric for the yo-yos which are interspersed with solid fabric hexagons.
I noted that Haug used black thread for connecting the hexagons, an unusual decision. But she explains it was intentional: “I wanted to mark the time through contrasting thread so the viewer got a better understanding of the time-intensive process for making this work, in particular.” I am reminded that artists don’t make mistakes, every choice is intentional and it is our job to understand.
Many in my weekly quilt group are paper-piecing addicts! I have included paper piecing in several of my quilts. I know how much time is involved! But I am sure the general viewer has not a clue!
Another artist who caught my eye was Karen Turner. She uses vintage and recycled fabrics in her fiber art. She was inspired to create a slow stitch journal on a single piece of cloth.
Like Turner, I find hand stitching very relaxing. I love embroidery and hand quilting and hand applique. Turner notes that while working these simple stitches she felt very grounded and meditative. At year’s end, Turner had a strip of 365 blocks, “a visual marker for the passing of time.”
Rebecca Cartwright documented temperature highs and lowes in 2019 in her Temperature Quilt, comprised of 365 split hexagons.
A few years back a friend knitted a scarf that represented a sport team’s wins or losses. There is a great opportunity in knitting for documenting events.
Joan Sheldon is a marine scientist who uses her craft to represent scientific data. Her crotched Climate Change scarf uses color to illustrate temperature changes from 1600 to the present. It is beautiful, but also startling and concerning when you understand what it represents.
Tommye considers how artists use codes in their work and the book includes pages showing Morse Code and Braille that can be visually incorporated into your art.. There are full pages of templates for planning your project.
Tommye shares her own journey and her sixteen year long practice of daily weaving. She offers ideas of how to get started. She notes that, in the end, “it is about the journey.”
I have shared only a few of the stunning artists in the book.
The book is beautifully presented. It includes two ribbon book markers and the inner side of the dust jacket is printed with “Daily Creative Practice Starting Points.” The hardbound cover has the same design as the dust cover.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book.
Tommye Scanlin enjoys the slowness of tapestry weaving. She realized that she was “weaving to the passing of time” and wondered if the process could be employed to represent time. “What if I made a tapestry with each day as a separate, distinct part?” she asked.
Tommye searched for other artists with a daily practise. She discovered a weaver who documented her emotional state over a time of crisis. Other artists documented the weather. Some incorporated coded messages. She asked these artists to talk about their motivation and process.
The resulting book is an inspiring exploration of new ways to use craft for self-expression–documenting one’s internal life, the world around us, and the passing of time.
Most of the artists are weavers, but others work in embroidery, quilting, and mixed media,
Roan Haug is an artist who has a “deep appreciation for traditional domestic arts, especially that of quilting. Her quilt All My Quiet Moments includes traditional yo-yos and paper piecing hexagons, hand piecing, and French knots.
I love how she used the sheer fabric for the yo-yos which are interspersed with solid fabric hexagons.
I noted that Haug used black thread for connecting the hexagons, an unusual decision. But she explains it was intentional: “I wanted to mark the time through contrasting thread so the viewer got a better understanding of the time-intensive process for making this work, in particular.” I am reminded that artists don’t make mistakes, every choice is intentional and it is our job to understand.
Many in my weekly quilt group are paper-piecing addicts! I have included paper piecing in several of my quilts. I know how much time is involved! But I am sure the general viewer has not a clue!
Another artist who caught my eye was Karen Turner. She uses vintage and recycled fabrics in her fiber art. She was inspired to create a slow stitch journal on a single piece of cloth.
Like Turner, I find hand stitching very relaxing. I love embroidery and hand quilting and hand applique. Turner notes that while working these simple stitches she felt very grounded and meditative. At year’s end, Turner had a strip of 365 blocks, “a visual marker for the passing of time.”
Rebecca Cartwright documented temperature highs and lowes in 2019 in her Temperature Quilt, comprised of 365 split hexagons.
A few years back a friend knitted a scarf that represented a sport team’s wins or losses. There is a great opportunity in knitting for documenting events.
Joan Sheldon is a marine scientist who uses her craft to represent scientific data. Her crotched Climate Change scarf uses color to illustrate temperature changes from 1600 to the present. It is beautiful, but also startling and concerning when you understand what it represents.
Tommye considers how artists use codes in their work and the book includes pages showing Morse Code and Braille that can be visually incorporated into your art.. There are full pages of templates for planning your project.
Tommye shares her own journey and her sixteen year long practice of daily weaving. She offers ideas of how to get started. She notes that, in the end, “it is about the journey.”
I have shared only a few of the stunning artists in the book.
The book is beautifully presented. It includes two ribbon book markers and the inner side of the dust jacket is printed with “Daily Creative Practice Starting Points.” The hardbound cover has the same design as the dust cover.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book.
July 30, 2025
For weavers, this is probably a great book. I do a variety of other crafts including formerly quilting. Tommye surveys the work of a number of artists who have made a variety of calendars, diaries and journals (hence the title) in fiber. I wish I had more to say about it than I finished it. Whether it's that my focus is more on other art forms right now what, I was not able to find transferable skills or art that I will use in my own work. So you may enjoy. Get it from your library as I did. No harm in trying.
February 2, 2025
A delightful book profiling the many ways fiber artists mark the passage of time in their work. Tapestry artist Tommye Scanlin made a splash with her own "tapestry diaries" years ago, and this book collects similar practices from artists in tapestry weaving and beyond. I enjoyed seeing how many ways this seemingly simple practice can be executed in various disciplines. A beautiful book to flip through, even if you never intend to weave a tapestry diary.
4.5 stars!
4.5 stars!
February 24, 2025
I am not a journal-keeper though I am a quilt maker. I very much enjoyed reading about the ways that many fiber artists (primarily tapestry weavers) have incorporated daily/monthly/annual observations into fiber journals. A beautiful way to mark the passage of time.
May 13, 2025
Interesting with great pictures! I wish there had been a little more variety in crafts: it heavily focuses on weaving since that is the author's specialty, but I follow many embroidery, knitting, and crochet artists with similar projects.
December 11, 2024
Full of artist profiles and a multitude of examples, Scanlin's book is a trove of inspiration for your own diaristic fiber adventures.
March 28, 2025
Sorry. I'm glad all these people enjoy their hobbies, but I didn't really buy the premise of the book. I was bored.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews