MEET THE MAKER: KAREN BARBÉ
Image: Courtesy of Karen Barbé
‘If you embroider regularly, you already know the joyful sensations that making things by hand bring to your heart and body: the sound of the needle piercing the taut fabric or paper, the softness of the floss on your fingers, the thread colours playing cheerfully between them,’ writes Karen Barbé.
Image: Courtesy of Karen Barbé
Growing up with a mother who sewed, knitted, embroidered, quilted, and painted, it was natural that a young Karen would absorb both these skills and this sensibility. Karen began embroidering as a girl; it was a practice that connected her to the women in her wider Chilean family. As an adult, becoming a designer seemed a way of honouring those women and their ‘handmade lifestyle.’ So, in 2009, Karen founded her own design studio, in Santiago. Ever since, she has been creating a global name for herself by creating craft-based designs, teaching embroidery, and sharing inspirational visual stories on social media, through the hashtag #colourconfidentstitching.
Image: Karen Barbé. Photo credit: Jamie Kelter Davis.
In 2012, as Karen was teaching hand embroidery, she noticed that many of her students were frustrated by their colour choices, so she set about developing a method of teaching colour in an accessible way. Karen’s philosophy is that, ‘Colour is a skill that can be learned. It doesn’t matter how many times you feel you’ve failed when choosing colours. We all have the potential to shine just by learning the process and putting it into practice.‘
Karen incorporates two main theories in her approach; colour theory and colour sensitivity. As Karen describes them, colour theory entails understanding colour schemes, hue, value and saturation, and colour moods; colour sensitivity involves ‘training your eye for spotting colours in your everyday life, while learning how to extract and integrate them in a fresh and original palette.’
Karen’s inclusive and practical approach swiftly led to the publication of her book, Colour Confident Stitching — How to create beautiful colour palettes, which proved so popular it has been published in English (Pimpernel Press, 2017), German (Haupt, 2017), Spanish (Gustavo Gili, 2019), and Korean.
Karen’s repertoire now extends to a wide range of offerings, including online courses, like Colour Theory for Textile Projects, and a range of embroidery kits and projects, like Threads of Affirmation— which facilitates active meditation through embroidery, and draws on guided reflection to create an immersive experience.
Image: Threads of Affirmation. Courtesy of Karen Barbé, Joone Creative, and Fifi Buchanan.
SELVEDGE is delighted to be hosting Karen, on 12 November, in the latest session of our Meet the Maker series.
Karen will also be delivering an Embroidery on Paper workshop for SELVEDGE, on 11-12 February, 2023.