Imagine for a moment you were asked to rate your talent with needle and thread. Where would you position yourself?

Would you place yourself confidently at the top of the scale? Hesitate then assign a mid-scale point? Or would you all too quickly think somewhere towards the lower end of the gauge was most fitting?

We have a feeling there’s many of you who have just placed yourself far lower on the scale than you deserve to be!

Rarely can we see the flaws that are tucked behind a covering stitch or two, but more than that we know the time you spend with needle and thread might just be someone else’s inspiration to start or continue their own needlework journey - and we’d hate to think how many stitching ‘lights’ are being hidden under the bushel of perfection!

Whilst we’ll always encourage you to aim high and shoot for the stars, we don’t want any of you to let perfect be the enemy of the good. It’s so important to remember that our journeys with needle and thread are often so much richer than the finished ‘destination’ of each piece.

It’s about the progress we make with each stitch we lay, what we learn from our successes as well as out ‘not quite successes’ along the way and how the time we spend stitching often has benefits beyond words.

If you’ve been hiding your stitching under a bushel, now’s the time to let it shine!

Being willing to share your journey with needle and thread might just be the inspiration someone else needs to start or continue their own journey, and in the words of Napoleon Hill, ‘To be inspired is great, but to inspire is incredible!’

So go on, email news@inspirationsstudios.com and be the inspiration…

Experienced embroiderer or not, all of us have looked at the work of others and wondered how they could possibly do such amazing needlework, apparently without ever making mistakes. How are their stitches so perfect? And how is it they can turn out one stunning design after another without any failures?

This is probably more relevant when we look at our favourite designers. Our heads tell us that of course we are only going to see their best work, but our hearts still believe that maybe that is all they ever produce.

Many of us are familiar with the breathtakingly beautiful work of Hazel Blomkamp.

Renowned for her exquisitely detailed crewel-style embroidery, it is hard to imagine anything less than wonderful coming out of her fingers. But when we contacted her, Hazel sent us a reply entitled ‘Hazel’s Design Disasters…’

‘What I have found, over the years, is that if I have a specific purpose for a design – maybe I know where I’m going to hang it in my home – it goes smoothly. If I don’t really know what I’m going to do with the finished product, you can be sure that it is going to go wrong.’

‘My most recent disaster occurred when I was working up projects for my Crewel Birds book. Living where I do, there is no shortage of Guinea Fowl in my home environment and along with the monkeys that dance on my roof most days, I’m rather fond of them. I had been curious as to why there were so few embroidery designs out there that featured a close-up Guinea Fowl. Plenty of them pictured in the distance, but that’s about it.

I battled to draw it because it doesn’t exactly have a beautiful face, but I soldiered on and eventually got something on paper that I thought was workable. I transferred it onto fabric, chose some threads and started to stitch it but with very long fingers. I just wasn’t enjoying it.

I completed the head and then had to go off on an overseas trip. When I got back, I looked at it with fresh eyes and decided, no. Ditch it. I had realized that a Guinea Fowl close up is not really a thing of beauty.

It is still sitting, neatly folded, in my thread cupboard as if I might go back to it. I know I won’t but still it waits.’

Still in the same country, and equally as talented is Trish Burr. When you look at Trish’s designs, it is difficult to imagine that she could ever put a stitch out of place, but she also sent us a wonderful story:

‘We had just re-located from Zimbabwe to Cape Town, and I was asked to attend the South African Ighali embroidery convention that year as a guest of the Embroidery Guild. As I was not teaching, I decided to sign up for an embroidery class with Norma Young who was the vice chairlady of the Cape Town guild at that time. The idea was not only to pass the time but also to see how others taught embroidery as I was quite new to teaching at that time.

The classes took place in a large hall and we sat at tables covered with white tablecloths. We were stitching a project that required that we tack an embroidery stabilizer on to our ground fabric. I diligently tacked through the stabilizer and ground fabric, then sat back with a smug smile on my face.

Needless to say, I was very embarrassed, but we all had a good laugh and I received the booby prize for the worst stitcher on the first night of the convention.’

‘As far as stitching failures are concerned, I would like to reassure everyone that I have had many. I make ample use of those black garbage bags for disposing of my mistakes and recommend to others that if they are not happy with the way their embroidery is progressing – they should scrap it and start again. Unpicking is just too much like hard work!

Hazel and Trish are not the only designers we’ve heard from, so we’ll bring you some more stories next week. As such, rest assured, we all make mistakes and we all have disasters. In fact, we’d love to hear about your stories of stitching failures too – what better way to encourage one another than by keeping it real and re-assuring every stitcher out there that mistakes happen and that’s perfectly ok!

Sometimes you want a project that can be worked up quickly, but it’s not always easy to find one that is both quick and gorgeous. Well, we’ve got the solution for you! Capture the beauty of a cottage garden by making one of these new needle keeps, inspired by vintage French seed packets.

Each kit is complete with full instructions, all of the fabric and materials you need to construct the needle keep (excluding threads), including the pre-cut boxboard and a pre-cut, pre-printed seed packet design.

Best of all, it is small enough that you can finally use up some of those spare threads you have lying around.

Choose from three designs – Lobelia, Verbena and Dahlia – or better still, why not make a set? Just as there is satisfaction in planting seeds and watching them grow, there is equal satisfaction in starting and finishing a project.

We can’t do your gardening for you, but we can definitely help with your stitching.

Have you heard of the term ‘rat’s nest’ in relation to embroidery threads? I’m sure none of you have one of those, have you?!

OK, we’ll be the first to raise our hands. We have a few piles of threads which could resemble a lovely resting spot for a sleepy rodent. Well, the time has come to sort those threads out, and we’ve got the perfect solution.

The elegant gold tin from DMC is making a comeback. Originally released when DMC introduced their new range of thread colours, this tin has proved incredibly popular as a storage container. There has never been a better time to tidy your thread collection and these tins are ideal.

Just the right length to lay your skeins of thread, with an easy seal lid and a stunning matte finish, imagine how good your collection will look stored in these beauties. Close the mouse hotel and grab your DMC tins now before they sell out again.

As the world continues in its strangeness, one thing that remains constant is the beauty of nature. Through her love of all things nature inspired, textile artist Yumi Okita has captured that beauty in her stunning, larger than life embroidered moths.

Each of Okita’s creations is unique and although realistic, they are all interpreted in an imaginative way.

Perhaps right now we need more than ever to connect with the natural world in whatever way we can and honouring it with needle and thread seems ideal.

To discover more about Yumi Okita and her stunning creations, you can read a great article about her on My Modern Met HERE.

One of the oldest and most widely practiced forms of embroidery is whitework. Whitework is a catchall term that refers to embroidery worked in white thread on a white ground. However, that deceptively simple description doesn’t come close to representing the variety of different techniques which fall under the umbrella of whitework.

Whitework has been practiced in all parts of the world and has been done for millennia by embroiderers of all kinds. Some of the earliest whitework dates back to a Danish grave site from over 3,000 years ago, but, due to the unfortunate impermanence of textiles, the technique could potentially be much older.

Whitework can be worked using either counted techniques or surface techniques and can involve cutwork, drawn thread or pulled thread work. Or, in the case of Schwalm embroidery, the specific type of whitework Deborah Love has used to create Field of Flowers from Inspirations issue #106, can be worked using a combination of almost all of them.

Schwalm embroidery emerged from the region of the Schwalm River in Germany during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Although there was a lull in its practice after World War II, it was revived in a newer, modern form which is what we enjoy today.

One of the delightful facts about the early forms of Schwalm was that the ground fabric was completely covered with stitching.

Fortunately, as we now live in a more ‘enlightened’ world, modern Schwalm designs, such as Field of Flowers, allow for harmony between the intricate patterns and flower shapes, and elegant white linen background.

Schwalm embroidery breaches the boundaries of the counted/surface embroidery divide. Worked on traditionally counted linen, the patterns within the petal shapes all require careful counting.

However, the shapes themselves exist without relation to the counted threads – indeed, in order to achieve a perfect curve, one needs to work with a sharp needle and follow the lines of the shape, not the holes of the fabric.

In order to succeed with Schwalm, you need to work the outline of each shape before you do the filling. When you work the filling stitches you may need to compensate when you reach the boundary of the shape as you may not be able to work the complete stitch.

This can be challenging, but the satisfaction of filling the carnation, daisy, tulip and leaves of Field of Flowers accurately is worth the time it takes to think about it.

Surface stitchers, counted stitchers, drawn thread lovers, pulled thread aficionados – Field of Flowers by Deborah Love is just right for all of you. Stitch the parts you love and learn from those parts that are new to you. This project offers the best of everything in one beautiful, luminous, pure white package.

Step 1 – Purchase Project Instructions

Field of Flowers by Deborah Love is a lovely whitework mat with flowers worked using a compelling variety of traditional Schwalm fillings.

Step 2 – Purchase Ready-To-Stitch Kit

The Inspirations Ready-To-Stitch kit for Field of Flowers includes everything* you need to re-create this whitework mat: Fabric (unprinted), embroidery threads and needles.

*Please Note: To cater for flexibility of purchase, instructions are not included with our kits. For step-by-step directions on how to create this project, please refer to the magazine/digital pattern.

Gypsy by Deborah Love from Inspirations issue #102 is an eight-sided tablecloth worked in textural Mountmellick embroidery with flower sprays surrounding flowing vines, edged with a knitted fringe.

Hidden Delights by Deborah Love from Inspirations issue #93 is an enchanting Schwalm embroidery featuring a songbird framed by a heart.

Noël by Barbara Kershaw from Inspirations issue #96 is a superb whitework Christmas stocking with Schwalm embroidery.

Whitework Inspirations features 8 of world's most beautiful whitework projects, to delight and inspire.

There are so many embroidery techniques to try that it would take a lifetime to master them all. But there are some techniques which are particularly popular, and it seems our readers just love stumpwork and three-dimensional embroidery. So this week we’re showcasing some wonderful 3D projects for your stitching pleasure.

‘Rosalie takes Brazilian Embroidery stitches to new levels. My trips to Black Creek for Tuesday stitching and to the Filberg Senior Centre on Thursdays in Courtenay are the highlight of my week.’

‘As a scientist, then accountant, I didn’t think I was at all artistic - I have a lot to learn and fear I haven’t enough time to put all my ideas into practice. I am now known as ‘Granny Stitch’!’

‘The Pohutakawa tree has been an amazing inspiration - here are two of my pieces, obviously one is not all stitch.’

We love your combination of photography, stitching and art, Anne. For someone who fears that they weren’t artistic, I think your work is evidence that in fact you very much are!

‘I just recently finished this Julie Kniedl piece called Cornus from your book, A Passion for Needlework. I love all of Julie's designs and I also have her book, Botanica. I used the ready to stitch kit for this and I want to thank you for producing such lovely, complete kits to go along with your detailed, easy-to-follow instructions.

‘I completed this bauble last week after working on it on and off since I bought the kit some years ago.’

‘My revised goal was to complete it for Christmas 2019, but other projects and more involvement with my grandchildren put paid to that.

Your article about perfectionism and being hard on yourself resonated with me, and I have accepted that it's not the end of the world and it can take pride of place on the tree for 2020!’

We’re so lucky that Christmas comes every year, aren’t we? It means that we’ll always meet the deadline… eventually. Great work, Kim!

Do you love stumpwork or three-dimensional embroidery? Or is there another technique you just can’t get enough of? We’d love to see your work so please send in pictures with a bit about your stitching journey to news@inspirationsstudios.com

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Unlock more fascinating secrets of Chinese needle art with the introduction of innovative and exciting Random Stitch Embroidery.

The Art of Chinese Embroidery 2 by Margaret Lee contains 9 breathtaking projects, from the beginner’s tutorial through to complex portraits and still life designs, all with the expert guidance for which Margaret Lee is famous.

Kits for the projects featured in The Art of Chinese Embroidery 2 are now available for purchase. Click below to browse our range.

Kakisubata by Margaret Lee from Inspirations issue #74 is an elegant and refined Japanese Embroidery study worked in lustrous silk.

Sakura by Margaret Lee from Inspirations issue #105 is a delightful beaded purse featuring a cherry blossom.

Collector's Item by Margaret Lee from Inspirations issue #21 is a set of glorious bathroom linen adorned with colourful pansies and sunflowers.

Who can resist the alluring sparkle and infinite palette of beautiful beads, artfully worked to create truly spectacular results? Discover a whole new world of beading through the pages of this superb book by Margaret Lee which includes detailed step-by-step diagrams, full descriptions of the techniques involved and fabulous photography.

~ Morgan Harper Nichols ~

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.