Cross-stitching with Cottage Garden Threads: Tips & Tricks
This is a long-promised post, and one that’s just a beginning. The more I work with Cottage Garden Threads in my designs, the more I discover about their potential for bringing new & exciting things into cross-stitch. The following are some tips & tricks that I’ve discovered so far, but I’d love to hear your…
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Tasmanian Tiger
When designing ‘Tasmania, after the fires’, I couldn’t resist creating this companion piece, based on my favourite Australian cryptid, the Tasmanian Tiger/Thylacine. Stitched in the same threads as ‘After the fires’, this little pincushion celebrates the enigmatic creature that still haunts the bushland. This beautiful colourised footage of the last Tasmanian Tiger in captivity from…
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Tasmania, after the fires
This design arose from the wonderful opportunity to create a design for the first Dark Mojo Retreat in Hobart, Tasmania in June 2022. Kerrilyn Packer at A Stitch in Time has been a fantastic support for Australian designers, dyers and needleworkers and working with her has been a delight. After I suggested doing a design…
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Getting ready for Tasmania
I acknowledge and pay respect to the Tasmanian Aboriginal people as the traditional and original owners, and continuing custodians of this land about which I am learning and acknowledge Elders – past and present. Next week I’m travelling to Hobart, Tasmania for the first time – to present a new design at the Dark Mojo…
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A new retreat!
I’m thrilled to be invited to gorgeous Hobart this June for a brand new retreat held by A Stitch in Time. Kerrilyn owns a beautiful needlework store, and is tremendously supportive of Australian designers, dyers and stitchers. And, she had the genius idea of hosting a stitching retreat at the same time as Hobart’s world-renowned…
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Peace & Plenty: A New Year’s Wish
I must confess a secret. I often look at antique samplers and embroideries and wonder about the lives that the stitchers lived. I wonder about their hopes and dreams, and how they stitched themselves into their work, which survives long after them. And so I want to stitch my hopes into my work, each tiny…
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Christmas 2021: Christmas hot & cold
Christmas is not all snowmen and reindeer for everyone. In Australia, Christmas Day is typically uncomfortably hot, spent under blazing blue skies with family and friends. The way we celebrate is different too: when I was little, I remember one of my grandmothers battling to create the traditional baked lunch, when it was too hot…
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Falling Leaves
Don’t you just love that crunch of Autumn leaves under your feet? My new Quaker design explores the beauty of the changing leaves of Autumn and Fall, and the creatures that you can find alongside them. In Australia, the vast majority of our native plants do not change colours for Autumn (with an interesting exception…
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Mary Barton’s Work
And finishing tips… When preparing new designs for the US Fall 2021 Needlework Expo, I was in the middle of a prolonged lockdown. I was working on a different antique reproduction, when it became clear that the lockdown would not end before Expo – meaning I couldn’t get the piece framed, or even get framing…
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Manon’s Garden
My heart skipped a beat when I first saw the antique – such a sweet collection of flowers, such a bright, rainbow palette and such an enigma. The almost anonymous stitcher only left us a single initial. Having sourced the antique from France, I decided to give her a French name, and to recreate her…
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Mojo Stitches 