Every month we showcase the latest high street trends, new ideas and inspiring personalities for today’s stylish cross stitcher
Love it, stitch it
Have you ever wanted to create your own cross stitch patterns? Sally Wilson of Caterpillar Cross Stitch has developed an easy-to-use design tool to allow you to create patterns from scratch or convert photos with a few clicks! Even if you’re not interested in creating your own designs, you can also shop and search a wide range of patterns by international independent designers. Video tutorials guide you through each step of the design process, with full support from the team and a friendly community behind you. Sally says, “Over the years, I was inspired by daily requests for personalised, unique patterns our community couldn’t find elsewhere. I had a dream to help others turn their design ideas into a cross stitching reality, so Love it Stitch it was born.” For more details, including a free trial offer, visit loveitstitchit.com.
FIRM FAVOURITES: EMMA HORAN
In a new series, designers share with us their top stitching essentials
THREADS
When designing a kit for my company www.emmalouiseartstitch.co.uk the most important thing to me is colour and so my threads are a prized possession. I have a collection of all the different brands with colour charts in thread boxes, skeins and bobbins all around my studio/shop and I have a collection of the most common Anchor colours that I use in cones on the shelf behind me as I work.
TECHNOLOGY
Probably not the most thought of accessory but the most important for my job. Without my computer , software and my iPad, my job would be so much harder. I use cross stitch professional software to translate my art work into a design, so spend quite a lot of time drawing in little squares.
As a designer and stitcher I use a variety of items and have a love for collecting all the related stitchy accessories but I do have a number of things I can’t create without…
HOOP OR FRAME
I do find it really interesting to see how everyone stitches differently and have noticed both in my Facebook group and from the people who attend my Stitch Saturdays that this differs greatly from those who just pull some rumpled material out of a bag and stitch freehand to those who bring in Lowery stands, magnifiers and lights.
I don’t use lots of accessories to stitch with at all, but I like my material to be taut when stitching and so always use a hoop or a frame. I have used many different versions of these and own lap stands and free-standing frames but my favourite way to stitch a small project is a simple circular hoop, and for large projects
