a new year and a new sampler
I have to say that this has been the strangest start to a New Year! We were lucky enough to be able to have the children back at Christmas as they are students and we had a lovely quiet family Christmas but once they left the third full lock down began. Once again we are incredibly lucky to live by the sea with plenty of space for walking and a bit of sea swimming but it is still difficult to stay positive as time passes and there is no sign of an end to all this. So I have been stitching and thinking and twiddling around with my website.
I have popped stitch tutorials onto my website for the main stitches that I like to use in my patterns. I created the tutorials using circles and ovals on a piece of linen and then realized that it made quite a nice sampler so the pattern is available in the free section on my website
There aren’t detailed instructions with this pattern as it has been designed so that you can practice the stitches in my stitch tutorial section. I have listed the colours that I used although it would be lovely to see the colours that you choose too. If you are completely new to embroidery I have the basics (including transferring the pattern) here
I have kept to organic curved shapes as I tend to use curved lines in my designs.
For customers outside the UK, I’m afraid at the moment I am not posting kits or panels. It is difficult to guarantee items arriving with all the difficulties caused by covid 19. I am considering opening up sales to the USA but with tracked postage which, unfortunately, is more expensive but necessary at the moment. I will send a newsletter out if I do this.
I am still posting panels within the UK as I don’t need to go into the post office to do this, they can be posted at the top of my road on my dog walk. I’m afraid full kits will have to wait until the end of lockdown.
I will also be ordering the quilter embroidery panels this week so they should be available soon.
I will be creating a resources page next week that will cover where I buy supplies in the UK, books I love and any useful websites or you tube videos.
On the whole it’s nice to have a little breathing space at the start of the year so I can plan a little and (hopefully) be more organized this year. I feel quite lucky that my work includes a lot of sketching and stitching, perfect for these cold damp days when we are spending such a lot of time indoors.
I hope you try out the sampler design and have a play with stitches and colours. I will be writing a blog post about colours and choosing colours for embroideries next week. Please feel free to share your finished samplers with me I would love to see them
I hope you have a lovely stitchy weekend