Did you know that celebrating your own successes can help those around you achieve their best?

When we celebrate our success, we show those around us what’s possible, encourage them to achieve more and in turn celebrate their own achievements.

Whilst it’s important to maintain a healthy balance between humility and our sense of ability, all too often we lean towards humility all the while undervaluing our abilities, especially those with needle and thread.

We often hear of stitchers who are reluctant to share their work publicly because they don’t believe it measures up, and yet when encouraged to share their success, they often find it sits equally alongside the standard they didn’t think they could reach.

It can be as simple as taking a moment to reflect on the path you took to achieve the success that lays before you, sharing the achievement with family or friends, making a note of the goal so it inspires you in your future endeavours, right through to displaying your success publicly and thanking everyone who supported you in reaching your goal.

So why not inspire someone around you today by taking a moment to celebrate your own success with needle and thread? We look forward to hearing what and how you celebrated!

This week it’s Fiona Freund’s inspirational story of her journey with Inspirations that is helping us to celebrate 100 issues of Inspirations Magazine…

‘I am very proud to say that I am the owner of the entire collection of Inspirations Magazines and almost all the other books you have published, including the A-Z Series. I first got my love for embroidery from watching my grandmother spend every spare minute either knitting or embroidery in various styles. It fascinated me as a small child how a handful of beautifully coloured threads could be turned into a piece of art or a unique usable item. I now have several of her works and treasure them dearly.

After getting married, my husband and I struggled to fall pregnant and a doctor suggested I take up an interest to help relax me, so I turned to embroidery. Looking for inspiration for a project to start, I came across a copy of an Inspirations Magazine in an embroidery shop, Lyn’s Fine Needlework. From that day I was hooked on embroidery of all styles! I fell in love with all the gorgeous, lush, colourful threads as I found they warmed my soul.’

Congratulations on your 100th Issue and I look forward to 100 more!’

Sitting and stitching with your daughter must be a beautiful full circle moment Fiona! We’re honoured that Inspirations has been part of your stitching journey and love that stitching became a companion and support through a difficult time. We appreciate you taking the time to share your story which reminds each us to take refuge with needle and thread though the difficult seasons in life.

I enjoy every Thursday, when I participate in all the classes and social activities that are on offer from our Guild. Most of my daylight hours are spent gardening, then I enjoy my sewing in the evenings. I love the challenge of learning and trying difficult projects which, I believe, is very important for all of us as we age as we need to constantly test our brains!’

Daphne, we love hearing how the seed of needle and thread that is planted during childhood often develops into a passion that is realised during retirement. Not that we want to wish our lives away, but the allure of gardening and stitching filling our days makes us wish our retirement was just a little closer!

‘I am looking forward to learning how to embroider on clothes as every time I sit down to work on an embroidery project, I get lost in my imagination and feel so happy! Peyote Stitch is my favourite technique. I have converted the small living room in my tiny apartment into my personal studio where I now work from.’

Maryna, we love that you’re carrying on the artistic traditions of your family and can’t believe how much you’ve managed to pack into your home studio!

Stay tuned next week as we share more of the conversations we discover during our Spring Cleaning. Until then…

We’re going to let you in on a little secret… printed copies of issue #95 are nearly sold out. This means two things: Yes, it has been a very popular issue and yes, if issue #95 is missing from your collection you need to click HERE now and purchase a copy tout suite.

Now… the good news is we have been working behind the scenes in anticipation of issue #95 selling out and have released every project from that issue as a digital pattern. So even if you miss out on a printed copy, or you prefer the convenience of a digital pattern, we’ve got you covered.

When it came to put together Inspirations issue #100, some of our advertisers went out of their way to make it personal:

Thank you to Ellice, Lucy and the team at San Francisco School of Needlework, to Tessa and her team at Stitch and to Helen M. Stevens for your kind words of love and support. We appreciate the congratulations and look forward to partnering with you for the next 100 issues!

Visit San Francisco School of Needlework website HERE
Visit Stitch website HERE
Visit Helen M. Stevens website HERE

There are not that many people in the world who enjoy doing the dishes, but there are some. There are also some people who have two sets of tea towels, one for drying dishes, the other set purely to look good in the kitchen. In fact, you’re not even allowed to dry the dishes with the ‘good’ tea towels and you’ll get severely reprimanded for trying to do so.

Regardless of where you sit in the tea towel spectrum, we’ve created a set of needlework-inspired tea towels to either hang up and admire, embellish with a little needlework if the mood strikes, or you can even dry some dishes with them! Fancy that, a tea towel that dries dishes… what will they think of next!

The December issue of Australian House & Garden magazine marked their 70th Christmas issue and to commemorate this significant milestone, they had Christmas all stitched up! Their festive masthead was created in goldwork by Sharyn and Mary who are both members of the Embroiderers’ Guild NSW Inc. This significant commission follows on from the many film and book credits they also have to their names.

Australian House & Garden’s editor, Lisa Green, shared how each Christmas, no matter where her family may be, she always lays her festive table with eight delicate linen napkins that belonged to her grandmother, each embroidered by her three great aunts. Which, along with three pillowcases embroidered with her children’s initials, lay the foundation of her celebration each year. She then went onto to share that ‘the tiny stitch details take me back to sewing lessons with the Principal’s wife at my tiny country primary school. Between the hot summer and running at lunchtime, the needle always seemed harder to grasp, the cloth evermore damp! So, I’m full of admiration for the team who embroidered our cover this month.’

We’re full of admiration too! For both Australian House & Garden who took stitching to the masses by commissioning a goldwork masthead for their milestone issue, and for Sharyn and Mary who did needleworkers the world over proud with their beautifully laid metal threads and precise stitching.

Whilst doing research for this article, we began to realise that Anna is a bit of a quiet achiever – we knew she was amazing, but when you put it all together in one place you realise just how amazing she is.

Anna graduated from the Danish Needlecraft Guild College with honours in technical hand embroidery and began designing and teaching embroidery soon after. She also worked on projects such as ecclesiastical vestments in Denmark, including the bishops cope for Aarhus Cathedral, Denmark designed by Queen Margrethe II.

After moving to Australia, Anna joined the team at Inspirations working in various capacities including editing numerous books until eventually taking on the role of Editor-In-Chief for Inspirations Magazine from issues 71 through to 81. During her 11 years with us, Anna’s gorgeous designs featured in several publications, including over 20 projects in Inspirations Magazine itself.

From there Anna went on to establish her own business ‘Fine Stitch Studio’ where she works today continuing to create spectacular pieces that she sells as patterns and kits, as well as travelling the world as an accomplished tutor.

It was our privilege to have Anna teach at Beating Around the Bush recently, and we caught up with her to have a chat about the project Pomegranate & Rose.

How did this amazing design come about?

‘When Susan O’Connor (Inspirations’ current Editor-in-Chief) contacted me to discuss a project for issue #100 of the magazine, she suggested a colourful piece of silk and goldwork would be wonderful to see. Thinking back to the design I did for the original cover of A-Z Goldwork book, which was also used for the Beating Around the Bush 2014 logo, I decided to try and design something along similar lines.’

‘I really admire the embroideries on 18th century costume. It is delicate and colourful, and I guess that admiration is the underlying inspiration for the design. When drawing this one, I was thinking shapes and texture of stitches more than any particular flowers or fruit and then used lines and scrolls of gold to tie it all together.’

For those of us who are thinking about stitching this project for ourselves, do you have any tips or tricks you can share with us?

‘When there’s repeated motifs within a design, I always complete all the same motifs at the same time. It is much easier to get them looking the same than if you stitch one, then do something else and then try and repeat the same motif days, weeks or months later. This is particularly important with symmetrical designs such as Pomegranate & Rose.

Looking back to your involvement in Inspirations Magazine over the years, do you have any special moments or memories that come to mind?

‘My best memories of Inspirations are not so much the magazine itself – it is the people. All you guys, former colleagues, the readers and all the contributors. The interaction and coming together of likeminded people that is what makes it special.’

Thank you, Anna, for the extraordinary body of work you have contributed to the needlework community over the years. Your designs have inspired us, your needlework wowed us, and your tutoring has enlightening us, we are forever grateful to have you part of the Inspirations family.

In January next year, Anna will be teaching a workshop on choosing colour at the Embroiderer’s Guild of South Australia. The aim of the workshop is to give people a few guidelines and tools to help stitchers who are often ‘scared’ to alter or change colour schemes in a design.

Students will be stitching a given crewel design but choosing and using their own colour scheme. When Anna last did this workshop, she said it was amazing to see the very different results from the same design.

Everyone is welcome to attend, for details visit www.embguildsa.org.au

Also, you can check out more of Anna’s work on her website HERE and browse her kits and patterns on her ETSY shop HERE.

Pomegranate & Rose by Anna Scott is a superb silk and goldwork design of flowing stems laden with fruit and flowers.

Inspired by the pomegranate in Anna Scott’s ‘Pomegranate & Rose’, we searched to find what other fruit had been created with needle and thread by the Inspirations Community…

‘My name is Anna and I am originally from Russia, although I now live in Finland. I have been a subscriber to Inspirations for many years and really love your magazine!’

‘I have recently completed Woodland Berries from Inspirations #67 and Strawberry Fayre is now in progress.’

Anna, one can never have too many strawberries, especially those that help keep our needlework tools so safely and beautifully stored! We love your version of Barbara Jackson’s needle accessories and look forward to seeing Strawberry Fayre once it’s complete.

Hailing from the UK, Jenny is one of our regular contributors to ‘What Are You Stitching?’ and this week she’s the apple of our eye…

Jenny, we love that you’ve knitted an apple cover for your apple! What an innovative and fun way to display and protect a piece of fruit.

‘I was born in South Africa but have lived in London for the past 18 years. I have embroidered since the age of 12 and my Mum still treasures my first piece of work. I have tried various types of embroidery and am mainly self-taught. Inspirations is the best magazine ever! I’m the proud owner of all 100 copies and always eagerly await the arrival of the next issue. I’m hoping to retire soon so I will be able to have more time to embroider.’

Judy, we love your version of Victoria Laine’s Delicate Touch and appreciate your support as an Inspirations Foundation Member.

If you’ve stitched something fruity, we’d love to see it! Email photos of the fruit you’ve created with needle and thread along with a few details about what inspired your stitching journey to news@inspirationsstudios.com.

With less than 2 weeks until Christmas and only 1 issue of All Stitched Up! left for 2018, if you need a book to read, a kit to stitch or a gift to give you need to hurry!

To tempt you this week, here are some more Ready-to-Stitch kits from our new book A Passion for Needlework | Factoria VII:

Le Magnolia by Catherine Laurençon

Stunning threadpainted magnolia worked in vibrant colours on linen.

Versailles Chatelaine by Susan O’Connor

Elegant silk needlebook with a monogram, pinwheel, scissor sheath and fob.

* Please note Inspirations Ready-to-Stitch kits do not include instructions. Everything you need to know, and more, about re-recreating our stunning projects is included in the publication they appear in which is available for purchase separately.

Become part of the Inspirations family by subscribing to the magazine... we'd love to have you join us!

White Rose by Jenny Adin-Christie is an exquisite rose button brooch using timeless whitework techniques.

~ Brian Tracy ~

Stay informed of upcoming needlework events taking place all around the world in our new What’s On page on the Inspirations Studios Website HERE.