Free e-course for needlepoint beginners

sampler You know about Janet Perry’s free e-course for needlepoint beginners, right? Back in April, Janet said,

Many people who learn needlepoint, myself included, teach themselves. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that you end up reinventing the wheel, and maybe not learning new stitches very quickly.
I wanted to change all that and make it easy for people to learn needlepoint, learn good needlepoint habits, and have enough stitches at hand to start doing painted canvases with confidence.
The result is my free email course, Right from the Beginning. You can sign up for it here. When you sign up, you’ll get all the lessons so far and then be put on the list to get the lessons as they are released. Once the whole course is done, it will be sent out automatically to new sign-ups.

See the post for details. Or share it with a friend who is just getting started.

Read These Next

Unique Stitch Crafts is a Turkish designer that has a couple of main interests in their cross stitch designs: travel and Christmas stockings.

By far the biggest category in their storefront is Christmas stockings, with more than 100 options to choose from. There are fully stitched fronts with designs classic and whimsical (like an alicorn and a pastel rainbow, or a bunny in Harlequin costume playing violin to a mushroom) and designs that just go across the cuff of the stocking. There are ornaments with a Nutcracker or Frozen theme, New York City stockings and stockings for your dinosaur.

As an example, here’s a stocking covered with mini holiday designs, which you could also use as ornaments if you wanted. The full design is 165 by 255 stitches, which comes out to 10.3 by 16 inches, or 26 by 40.6 cm on 16 count fabric. The pattern just makes the front of the stocking so you need to grab some fabric for the back of the stocking and sew it together yourself.

There’s also a large collection of travel cross stitch patterns, including national parks designs both large and mini, and travel poster style designs for many US states and cities. (There’s not an Arkansas, which is my standard test since I live there, but there is a pattern of the Mississippi River bridge in Memphis, which is technically half in Arkansas.)

If you’re more of a world traveler you’ll find more of the travel poster style designs for cities and countries, including Thailand and China, Berlin, Sydney and Marrakech.

In addition to all of that, you’ll find patterns called retro, which includes a wide range of designs, but many seem to be food and coffee related; folk art designs (lots of flowers and birds); and famous paintings translated to cross stitch. Smaller categories include Christmas, Halloween, animals, kids and castles.

Check out all the fun designs at Unique Stitch Crafts on Etsy.

[Photo: Unique Stitch Crafts]

Read These Next

Have you read?