A recent blog post from Hannah Brencher entitled ‘My Goals, Hopes + Rhythms for September’ left us thinking about our time with needle and thread and what we are - or perhaps are not! - achieving.

After receiving many a question about how she establishes discipline, routines and habits in her own life, Hannah decided the easiest way to break down how she navigates them was to simply share them.

Hannah unpacked the process she applies to using ‘PowerSheets’ to map her week, which walk her through the process of thinking through and documenting her monthly, weekly and daily action items. Once completed, she refers to them consistently to ensure she’s making progress toward the goals that matter most to her.

Interestingly, it wasn’t her method for mapping her week that captivated our attention, but rather the ‘sweet form of accountability’ the blog became that got us thinking.

After posting a photo of her PowerSheet for September, Hannah was struck with the realisation that she could indeed fail at all she had recorded, and that left her not only feeling incredibly vulnerable, but also motivated to make sure she was able to share a positive recap at the end of the month.

It was her sense of vulnerability and accountability that had us rethinking how we plan our time with needle and thread. Whilst there are absolutely times we stitch simply for the sheer pleasure of it, we too have goals, hopes and dreams of what we’d like to achieve on our stitching journeys. However, sometimes it can be all too easy to put them aside for another day which can leave us looking back and feeling a tad disappointed in what we’re yet to achieve.

Hannah’s blog made us realise that perhaps it’s not more planning that we need to achieve all we’ve set out to do, but a little accountability!

Whilst we’re yet to decide how, and with who, we’ll share our stitching ‘PowerSheet’, it’s given us food for thought as we look for a sweet form of accountability in our own time with needle and thread.

What about you? Have you found a way to be accountable with your goals, hopes and dreams? Perhaps you post your Stitching To Do List on a social platform, share it with someone close to you or make it known to your entire Stitch ‘n Chat or Guild? We’d love you to email us with what works for you and the difference a little accountability has made in what you achieve with needle and thread.

The following is an extract from the article published in Inspirations issue 106, written by Ansie van der Walt.

Clare Hunter is a community artist, curator and banner maker from Glasgow, Scotland where in 1986, she set up NeedleWorks. Here she works with people from all ages and cultures, using sewing as a way to celebrate local history, document community experiences and share personal concerns through the creation of wall hangings and banners.

‘In the 1980s I went to a mass demonstration at Greenham Common Peace Camp and saw there how women were using the fabrics from home – old sheets, tea towels, the cast-off clothing of their children – to create banners that emphasised their role as protectors of family and community, and it made me more aware of the potential of sewing as a social and political medium.’

In 1984, when Clare was asked to organise a community project in England to encourage local people to become more involved with their May Day parade, she decided on a banner-making project. ‘It was the year of the Miners’ Strike and I began, voluntarily, to make banners for the striking miners. I realised that banners offered a portable and powerful form of public art where people, especially those whose voices were rarely heard, could express their concerns, share their histories, celebrate their sense of place and possibility.’

Clare’s book Threads of Life – A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle, published in 2019 (see review at the bottom of the page HERE), is a narrative of the role needlework, sewing, embroidery and textiles have played in political and cultural events around the world and through the ages.

Over the centuries the status and economic value of women’s needlework became demoted until it was seen as something irrelevant to society, merely a form of female decorative diversion. In writing Threads of Life, Clare unearthed many examples, in every century, of people – men as well as women – sewing textiles of social meaning.

Clare found that in countries that suffered social and political loss, refugees and women lacking social freedom are taking up sewing as a way to make an income and gain a modicum of independence, to have a voice. It is these women who are changing the status of needlework by demonstrating how important it and its traditions can be to a community’s well-being.

Banner making is still one of NeedleWorks’ main objectives.

Whether at work as a community artist, or working on her next research project, textiles and needlework are always at the centre of Clare’s life. ‘Sewing is part of who I am. I am not a textile artist, so I don’t exhibit my own work. While I do work to commission the design evolves as a collective act, and with community textiles. I am there as a creative translator to help a community effectively transmit what matters to them in fabric and thread. I would like to think that my book Threads of Life is my artistic contribution to the world of needlework and that, through my creative writing, I have managed to convey the value I put on sewing as a way to voice my own humanity and the humanity of others.’

You can read the full article HERE or visit Clare’s website HERE.

Every two years the team here at Inspirations Studios channel our skills and talent into a singular obsession – to create the next instalment in our Passion for Needlework series.

This week we are beyond proud to announce the official release of our fourth book in the series, A Passion for Needlework | The Whitehouse Daylesford.

Each Passion for Needlework book is epic. It represents the pinnacle of our craft as a company that is dedicated to producing the world’s most beautiful needlework publications.

To that end, A Passion for Needlework | The Whitehouse Daylesford, picks up where the third book left off, and raises the bar to yet another level.

What makes a Passion for Needlework 4 so special?

To begin with, it’s the largest book we’ve produced to date, coming in at 240 pages with 3 pattern sheets in a handy storage pocket.

It’s big, it’s bold and it’s beautiful in all it’s hard cover, fabric spine, silk bookmark, premium quality print glory.

And then there are the projects…

12 of the very best designers, stitching 12 magnificent pieces befitting of a publication of this magnitude. Nothing restrained, nothing withheld, creative brilliance and needlework sophistication unleashed.

And the location?

The Whitehouse, styled by Lynda Gardner and located in Daylesford Victoria, Australia, was scouted and specifically chosen for its profoundly curated aesthetic and stunningly eclectic, yet cohesive artistic resolve.

Only the most glorious and opulent of embroidery designs can find harmony within a location such as this – the symphony of needlework and destination is exquisite.

Is it fair that this much temptation and needlework brilliance be included in one publication? Probably not. In fact, one could say that A Passion for Needlework 4 is an embarrassment of riches. This is one for the ages.

A special note of thanks to Georgina Bellamy, Hazel Blomkamp, Trish Burr, Tania Cohen, Alison Cole, Di Kircher, Jane Nicholas, Susan O’Connor, Anna Scott, Brenda Sortwell, Fumie Suzuki and Di van Niekerk, all of whom entrusted us with their remarkable pieces of stitched art. It’s our great joy and privilege to publish your work.

For a complete list of all the projects along with a description and photos of each, click on the link in the promo below.

Oh – and while you are there, don’t forget to purchase your copy of the book! And for those who are new to A Passion for Needlework, it’s not too late to start your collection now as all three of the first books in the series are still available from our website HERE.

So now is a good time to order your kits along with the book to save on postage – and a reminder for all Inspirations magazine subscribers to use your coupon code and save 15% off each kit.

It is our hope that the obsession we birthed in producing this book now becomes your obsession to take up your needle and stitch.

A Passion for Needlework | The Whitehouse Daylesford is our love letter to you, our always enthusiastic, incredibly talented and loyal stitching community. May you forever enjoy the world’s most beautiful needlework.

Love,
The Inspirations Studios Team

Did you know that Susan O’Connor is one of the most prolific, celebrated, and talented needlework artists of our generation?

Her body of work fills pages and pages of Inspirations magazine and Australian Smocking & Embroidery magazine, not to mention scores of embroidery books including a few of her own.

Susan’s popularity is unsurprising when you consider stunning designs such as her Chatelaine, which first appeared in Inspirations issue #89 (now sold out) and has just recently been released for the first time as a printed pattern.

Equally as exciting is the news that you can also purchase Chatelaine in its red Tudor Rose colourway as a Ready-to-Stitch kit.

Stock is limited for this special re-release kit, so if you haven’t already, purchase your copy today and create your own Susan O’Connor heirloom piece.

Technology has a plethora of benefits and drawbacks, both in equal measure. From the highs of a plethora of data at our finger tips and global communication at the stroke of a keyboard, to the laziness of being strapped in our chairs and the isolation of staring at our screens, it’s all a double-edged sword.

So, let’s tilt the scales in our favour and make finding your next needlework project as easy as possible so we can then put down our screens and enjoy the serenity and satisfaction of producing beauty with our needle and threads.

It’s a PDF file you purchase and download that contains a directory of every project ever published in an issue of Inspirations magazine from issue 1 through to issue 115.

You open the PDF on your device and can search for anything you can think of that you might want to stitch.

A bunny, a bee, a bag, booties, a blanket, a bookmark, a brooch – and that’s just a few things starting with B!

With over 1,000 projects to search through by type, name, technique or designer, plus a guide to which issue has the step-by-steps instructions for a particular stitch you need to look up – the options are endless.

Now just a reminder this PDF file is an index, not the projects or the issues of the magazines themselves. Rather it’s an incredibly useful and powerful search tool to use on your device.

Switch the script, use the power of technology for good and find your next stitching project easier than ever before.

Alison Cole is well known for her stunning stumpwork studies of wildflowers, many of which grow around her home in Victoria, Australia. Each project she has designed is more lifelike than the last, so it really was only a matter of time before Alison succeeded in lifting her stitched flowers out of the frame and constructing them completely in three dimensions.

Wildflowers of Hepburn, from our brand-new book A Passion for Needlework 4 | The Whitehouse Daylesford, is a project that has done just that.

Rather than picking a bouquet of wildflowers for a vase, knowing they will very quickly fade, with Wildflowers of Hepburn, you can enjoy a brilliantly coloured re-creation that will remain as fresh and beautiful in years to come as they did on the first day you placed them on your mantlepiece.

Alison has selected four delicate wildflowers for her bouquet. The beautiful yellow petals of the Bulbine Lily, or native leek, contrast delightfully with the purple-blue colour of the Slender Blue Sun Orchid. Of a similar colour, but with a completely different shape is the cluster of Native Flax.

What makes Alison’s selection all the more amazing is that Daylesford forms part of the Hepburn Shire, so the flowers she created with needle and thread are indeed native to the very location A Passion for Needlework 4 was photographed.

Finally, to set the other three flowers off, Alison has included the Salmon Pink Sun Orchid, which is a bloom of bright, rosy pink growing on a long stem.

All four flowers are native to Australia with the Slender Blue Sun Orchid also thriving in New Zealand. Although these flowers are relatively widespread across the country, most people appreciate the beauty of them growing in the ground so no longer pick them. This stunning project allows you to now enjoy these subtle and delicate blooms indoors, with the finished piece looking as much like the real thing as you could possibly imagine.

Three-dimensional embroidery means that every element you stitch is a detached element. Rather than placing them on a piece of fabric to highlight other raised or surface elements, with this technique, the construction is all done in three dimensions.

This means you can place your petals and adjust them so that they look as much like real flowers as possible.

Alison uses the finest silks to create her wildflowers to ensure that the finish is exquisite.

Each petal and leaf is stitched with the tiniest of blanket stitch edging to allow for easy cutting, and coloured with perfect long and short stitch to achieve the exact shading that you would see on the actual flower.

Thanks to her careful observation of the many wildflowers she finds in her gardens and surrounds, Alison has determined the precise colour and shape of each flower, including cleverly constructing the buds, columns and sheaths of each bloom.

There are some beautifully fine details involved that will bring amazement and delight as you stitch the pieces and put them together, knowing you have created a perfect flower with needle and thread.

We know that everyone is going to love creating this gorgeous bouquet, and we are confident that the exclamations of surprise from friends and family when they realise that these aren’t actually real flowers are going to be abundant.

With Wildflowers of Hepburn, you can truly bring nature into you home to enjoy for years to come.

Step 1 – Purchase Project Instructions

Wildflowers of Hepburn by Alison Cole is a stunning three-dimensional recreation of native flowers that grow near Daylesford.

Step 2 – Purchase Ready-To-Stitch Kit

The Inspirations Ready-To-Stitch kit for Wildflowers of Hepburn includes everything* you need to re-create this beautiful bouquet: Fabrics, wool felts, ribbon, wires, embroidery threads and needle.

Camellia by Julie Kniedl from the book Botanica is a stylish red flower, buds and contrasting leaves.

Remember by Philippa Todd from Inspirations #109 is an elegant three-dimensional poppy that can be worn as a brooch.

Grandiflora by Julie Kniedl from Inspirations #99 is a beautiful three-dimensional white magnolia.

Cornus by Julie Kniedl from the book A Passion for Needlework is a beautiful spray of soft pink dogwood.

Looking for even more three-dimensional flowers? We have you covered! A quick look through our What Are You Stitching? files revealed a host of flowers, all of which were at their seasonal best. Enjoy a stroll through our dimensional flower garden…

You are absolutely right Elizabeth! The raised elements on your cushion have set it off beautifully. Although we’re sorry to hear the cushion couldn’t be used for its intended purpose, it will be a gift that will be treasured for years to come.

Nicole, your stitching looks every bit as if you’ve framed a rose from the garden! It’s a superbly executed project and one that was definitely worth the wait.

A novice to stumpwork perhaps Dragica, but the results you’ve accomplished with just two days instruction suggest you’re anything but a beginner when it comes to your time with needle and thread! Your Golden Moth Orchid is every bit as picture perfect as Alison’s original.

Do you love to delve into dimensional embroidery or do you prefer to keep your stitching on the level?

Whether your stitching is one, two, three or more dimensional, we’d love to see it! Simply email photos of what you’ve created with needle and thread along with a few details about the project and your stitching journey to news@inspirationsstudios.com

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

Au Papillon ‘Fil d'Or De Luxe’ Metallics Thread Pack includes 13 x 35m (114') reels across a variety of gorgeous hues such as gold, copper, silver, black, white and even green and red.

Bumblebee by Trish Burr is a striking bumblebee, worked in Trish's unique ‘Whitework with Colour’ technique.

Gatsby by Trish Burr is a dapper flapper girl inspired by the 'roaring twenties' in whitework with colour.

Giraffe with Barbara Streisand Eyes by Trish Burr is a beguiling giraffe with dreamy eyes in whitework with colour.

O, Tannenbaum by Trish Burr from Inspirations issue #108 is a Scandinavian-inspired Christmas tree using an elegant palette of white, blue and gold.

~ Bob Proctor ~

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