Big news this week – it’s the official release of our brand-new book, Life in Seasons by Nicola Jarvis and we think you’re going to LOVE IT!

You can read all about the book below, along with what’s on offer for the kits and our feature project showcases the first of eight magnificent pieces Nicola has created.

If you’re still getting used to the fact that it’s 2024, buckle up because it’s nearly February already! That means we’ve got our next project from the Inspirations wall calendar to explore.

We’ve got a super fancy option to store your threads, a super miniature option to stitch a design and some super amazing stuff we’ve found in Stitching on Social.

That just leaves us with the most important segment, Have Your Say, where we’ve put together an abundance of ‘says’ for your reading pleasure.

Enjoy!

There is perhaps no greater way to share our life experiences with one another, than through the process of storytelling.

From the re-telling of events in our past, turning our day-to-day experiences into an entertaining listen, or casting our ideas for the future, telling stories is a powerful way of conveying our ideas, thoughts and emotions.

As a needlework fraternity, we are all well versed with the concept that our needle and threads are indeed storytelling tools.

Internationally renowned, RSN trained and with a career in designing, teaching and creating remarkable stitched art spanning over 30 years, Nicola Jarvis is a highly accomplished and skilled artist across many disciplines.

One such discipline is indeed storytelling, as you will discover for yourself when you experience her debut book, Life in Seasons.

Within the pages of Life in Seasons, Nicola has masterfully harnessed the full extent of her expansive creative talent and layered together a multi-faceted story using her sketches, paintings, poetry, photography and of course, her embroidery.

The stories Nicola tells are all beautifully woven together through her daily walks with her trusty canine Quince and cover her own life experiences, her passion for nature and the conservation of wildlife, exploration of the local flora and fauna, the spectacular English countryside, and the changing of the seasons.

All this is beautifully presented in a 160-page hardcover book featuring eight brand new needlework projects that Nicola designed, painted and stitched exclusively for this publication. Not forgetting of course, this is a step-by-step, how-to project book that also comes with two lift-out pattern sheets.

Life in Seasons, Volume 1 | Winter & Spring is out now.

The eight projects featured in Life in Seasons | Winter & Spring are some of the most creatively diverse we’ve ever published both in terms of their finish/construction and their approach.

This in turn means some designs are covered entirely in needlework, while others are partially embroidered leaving aspects of the printed design to show through, creating a beautiful partnership between print and stitch.

To help you re-create these eight magnificent designs, we have partnered with Nicola to create Ready-to-Stitch kits that include her original illustrations pre-printed onto fabric, along with all the threads you need to embellish the panels exactly as they appear in the book.

Once you’ve created your stitched panel, you can then choose your own way to display or construct the finished embroidery that best suits you.

Browse our collection of Life in Seasons kits today…

Looking for a needlework project you can stitch over a weekend? Perhaps something fun you can do with a child/grandchild who is interested in embroidery? Maybe you just love anything that comes in miniature?

Check out our range of Dandelyne Mini-Hoops!

Project: Hollyhocks
Publication: Where Meadows & Gardens Grow
Designer: Jo Butcher

Enjoy the elegant spires of beautiful Hollyhocks as they stretch towards the sky presented in shades of dusky pink and soft greens.

This project is now available for your convenience to purchase as a Digital Pattern, alternatively you can check out Jo’s book HERE or browse her range of kits HERE.

When we first wrote about the DMC Vintage Chest we titled the article ‘A Little Piece of Luxury’.

We were thrilled to discover that quite a few of you did just as the article suggested and spoiled yourself by purchasing one of these beautiful thread storage cabinets filled with DMC Mouliné Spécial cotton skeins.

Having sold out of our first shipment, more stock is now available so if you’re in the market for needlework luxury, click below!

Every month, we highlight some amazing work done with needle and thread that we’ve come across on social media! Here are the January highlights:

Don’t forget to follow Inspirations on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest to receive your daily dose of the world’s most beautiful needlework from all over the world wide web.

From wares to kits and all kinds of tricks, if it has recently come back in stock, you’ll discover it below.

Welcome to Have Your Say for 2024! We’re so glad to be back with a bumper segment featuring conversations from travel to TV film sets. So settle in and enjoy some of the tales we’ve received from your fellow stitchers…

Laurie wrote in with a tale of caution after reading the Stitch ‘n’ Travel welcome in ASU #407. She came home recently from a needlework convention to find she had inadvertently left some belongings on a train. Laurie’s wallet containing important cards and even the notes were returned intact, however a small bag of stitching remains misplaced.

‘The bag was a simple drawstring handmade gift and held some crochet and a pair of scissors. The scissors were my mother’s Gingher embroidery scissors featuring a beaded fob I had recently finished with effort, in an embroidered sheath that was a Christmas gift from a dear friend.’

We’re so sorry to hear of the loss of your precious stitching Laurie, we hope your story will caution others to be especially diligent with their treasured cargo.

Talk of travel also compelled Jane to share her enjoyment of a travelling needlework project. She visited Canada last August and while her thread cutters needed to be stored in her checked luggage she was able to carry a small pair of folding scissors in her hand luggage for all her cutting needs!

In response to the stitching stories shared in ASU #408, Lalah was reminded of her first stitching attempt. She quite clearly remembers being 5 years old, sitting on the front porch of their farm watching her mother hem handkerchiefs for her father.

‘I begged her to let me do one and, even though she knew it would waste a piece of linen, she patiently showed me how to make the stitches. I remember trying so hard to make the neat little stitches she did. When it was done, I was so proud of it that I could hardly wait for daddy to get home to show him. That was the first of my sewing attempts and he actually took it with him and used it in public.

I was enamoured with sewing from that time on. My dolls had a lot of clothes made with mother's left-over scraps. I was seven before my legs were long enough to reach the treadle on our Singer sewing machine and I made my first dress. It was white cotton with blue flowers and I was so proud of it. Needless to say, it was much neater than my father's handkerchief.

In ASU #409 we continued the Why’s and How’s conversation, which was of great interest to Sylvia and prompted her to share her experience. Similarly to many others, an elderly relative taught her needlework. She started with running stitch, lazy daisy (detached chain) and stem stitch on precious scraps of material.

‘I lived in London and was 4 years old at the time. The aunt who taught me held our lessons in our air raid shelter, to distract me from all that was happening around us. She certainly succeeded; I remember those lessons with great pleasure.’

Also responding to ASU #409, Ann sent us her stitching tale.

‘I was taught plain sewing and embroidery about 70 years ago by the headmistress at my Junior School. The first thing I was required to make was a pinafore in white cotton. Of course, all the stitching was by hand, and I kept being told to undo what I’d done because I was incapable (and uninterested) in making neat small stitches. Eventually I lost patience and dumped it in the school dustbin.

After my first year at Secondary School, we were able to choose some of our ‘practical’ subjects. I chose Art but I wasn’t allowed to do Art, I was required to take ‘Dress’ (garment making) instead. And, you’ve guessed it, I hated that too.

We had to sit the GCE O Level in Needlework, which actually entailed working out what some unprinted pattern pieces were and using them to construct part of a garment.

The one thing I enjoyed about that class was learning to use a treadle sewing machine. I would still prefer one to an electric, much easier to control.

It was not until I was about 25 that I started becoming interested in embroidery. I was entirely self-taught from library books, and journeyed through needlepoint to pulled thread, whitework and thence to needle lace of various types. I have diverted into all sorts of other crafts and can happily spend all day doing any of them, mixing and matching, for whatever my current project is, but I do have to have something to keep my brain occupied while my hands are working so audio books are for me!’

Finally, for Have Your Say this week we had a delightful update from Anne about her granddaughters who appeared in Inspirations issue #72 on page 5. Emma and Giulua were four months old then but became teenagers in 2023!

‘I went to Italy in October 2023. Whilst there we went to Milan for the filming of The Voice Kids Italy 2023. The girls were selected out of 3000 entrants. Finally, after three days their turn arrived. I was at the side of the set with my daughter, son-in-law and his parents. The girls were selected for the second round. Boy, were we a proud bunch. They were eliminated in the second round, but what an experience.’

As for her stitching, Anne sat in her hotel room and stitched when it wasn’t her turn to be on set.

We look forward to another year of stitching conversations with our wonderful All Stitched Up! community. So, if you have something to add to what was shared this week or a conversation you’d like to start, simply email news@inspirationsstudios.com

If Nicola Jarvis’s book A Life in Seasons | Winter & Spring is all about storytelling, let us tell you a story about this project…

‘One spring morning I was walking with Quince when I noticed that my trainer lace was undone. I bent down to tie it again and as I stood up I noticed a slight shimmer on the underside of a stinging nettle leaf…’

Nicola had encountered a mother of pearl moth. A member of the Crambidae family, it is one of the largest of the group known as micro moths that includes more than sixteen hundred species in the UK.

Mother of pearl moth, or Patania ruralis, can be spotted from late spring until mid-summer underneath nettle leaves by day and flying around at dusk and into the night.

Stinging nettles provide food and shelter for moth larvae as they live in rolled-up leaves until the adult moth emerges.

The banks of the River Avon in the Saxon Mill Fields are thick with nettles, providing an ideal habitat for moths and butterflies which Nicola and Quince enjoy discovering on their morning walks in spring.

Using surface embroidery techniques, a combination of Au Ver à Soie and DMC threads, seed beads, sequins, paillettes and a few other elements, Nicola brings her illustration of the Avonlea Moth to life.

This is a beautifully considered project with needlework adding dimension, and texture to create a unique piece, encompassing the stories of Nicola’s seasonal journey and the habitat of the moth itself.

We have all the materials you need to re-create this project yourself, from easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions to a Ready-to-Stitch kit with everything sourced for you.

Helena Gum Moth by Emillie Ferris uses threadpainting to showcase the gentle colours of this large Australian moth.

Double Take by Helen M. Stevens from Inspirations issue #98 is a charming scene offering a choice of colourways in the birds and moths with no change to the design.

Nature's Realm by Trish Burr from Inspirations issue #120 is a stunning threadpainted panel of flowers and pollinators using an analogous colour palette.

Butterfly by Catherine Laurençon from Inspirations issue #85 is a splendid threadpainted study showcasing shimmering wings of turquoise, blue-violet, tangerine and garnet fluttering among lush leaves.

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We’ve gathered some practical tools to add to your stitching tool kit to sort your thread stash.

Jenny herself (and perhaps with a little help from husband Ron!) have put together kits for two Christmas ornaments, which might just be what your tree is looking for!

For a list of upcoming needlework events, click HERE.