Bed Time Stories

Historical Research & Textile + Object Design

2026, Helsinki



Bed Time Stories is an exploration into how sleep and sleeplessness have been understood and materialised over time. This deep dive into the world of sleep was translated into four sleep supporting textile objects, creating one bedscape.


Sleep is a biological necessity, yet the ways we sleep, what we sleep with and how we interpret wakefulness are deeply cultural. At the same time, sleep itself has influenced domestic spaces, social rituals, scientific inquiry and material culture throughout history. The project began with research into the history of sleep and sleeplessness through literature, archives  and historical objects. I developed four categories of sleep supporting textiles: to cover, to filter, to sink into and to accompany. For each of these, I developed a narrative and a woven textile, which I ultimately shaped into an object. Together, the resulting blanket, lamp, pillow and companion object form a single bedscape that presents multiple perspectives on sleep and wakefulness.

To Cover explores care, domestic labour and women’s historical relationship to sleep textiles. The woven blanket combines references to embroidery, textile crafts and biphasic sleep. Based on an illustration I created from historical accounts of segmented sleep, the image was hand woven as a single large-scale repeat on a Jacquard loom using Finnish wool.

To Sink In translates a single night of my own sleep into textile form. Using sleep-tracking data, different sleep stages were assigned woven structures inspired by corresponding brain-wave patterns. The resulting pillow documents one night, including a broad interruption representing a period of wakefulness.

To Filter examines the relationship between light, industrialisation and sleeplessness. Around 852 million people worldwide experience symptoms of insomnia. This number was translated into 852 individually placed dots, woven into a double-weave textile surface. Combined with a birch wood structure, the fabric forms a bedside lamp intended to offer comfort during wakeful nights through the awareness of a shared human experience.

To Accompany explores the comfort object and its emotional attachment. This sheep pays hommage to the animal companions we used to share our sleep with. I designed a fil coupé fabric resembling shooting stars, which were hand-cut and hand-finished. Hidden inside its body is a compartment designed to hold personal memories or scents such as dried lavender.