What I love is the amount of cheeky humour in these, it just is so fun. Enjoy!

Also by the way my store has had some new releases this week you might want to check out here.

spooky tote- link here

Needlepoint Halloween Ghost - link here

Disco candy corn - link here

halloween pumpkin with a bow - link here

Fall Halloween Hutch - link here

Halloween Goose Witch - link here

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Halloween Dog - link here

Halloween Ghost - link here

Halloween Goose Skeleton - link here

Halloween Ghost Pumpkin - link here

Halloween disco - link here

Pumpkin Bear - link here

Ghost Goose - link here

haunted house ticket - link here

Haunted House Dog - link here

Mini Pumpkins - link here

Cowboy Ghost - link here

I hope you enjoyed this post - see you next week!

Because, if I’m being completely truthful, I don’t think I’ve done very much of this the “proper” way, or maybe really any of it.

There is a bit of a template for building a needlepoint business. You design something, have it painted, wait a really long time for it, photograph it beautifully, put it on a beautifully designed professional website and sell it.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing it that way, but it’s absolutely not what I have done.

I have come at this needlepoint thing with a lot more testing and creative play, starting with selling charts, and expanding into canvases, trying, failing, and trying again in my own way. In a word, I’m messy.

And in a needlepoint world where others seem a lot more ‘perfect’, I am starting to feel that difference.

But I keep testing anyway.

At first this just started as a few stitchly files on Etsy, but as it’s grown into something more serious (My canvases are stocked in real stores now 🫣), I have surprised myself with absolutely loving the business side of it, and I’ve started to see the execution of this business as something creative in itself.

There’s been so much problem solving, mistakes, learning, trying and testing that has been going on, not just with designs, but with how I structure wholesale, how I fulfil my orders, and a million other things.

The testing and figuring out as I go has made growing Golden Hour considerably messier than it probably needed to be.

But I’m beginning to realise that a lot of the things making my life harder are actually the result of one very consistent value system.

And where I’ve got to is this: I think I’m okay with choosing the headache.

I want more people to needlepoint

If I had to strip everything I’m doing down to one goal, it would probably be this:

I want to help more people get into needlepoint.

And I want more people to feel confident enough to try things themselves, especially self-finishing. I think it’s exactly the process of trying something new that unlocks that creative part of our brains, and I belive that truly, that can never be a bad thing.

This sounds very simple, but it has ended up influencing almost every decision I make.

For example this is why this Substack is free and will always be free.

People have actually pledged money to it, and I still haven’t turned the paywall on. I could, but I won’t, because I just want to connect with as many people as possible and hopefully get them to try needlepoint.

It’s why I’ve shared more than 20 free charts that I very easily could have (and some would say should have?) charged money for, but I didn’t. And I plan to share more.

Some of the free designs are advanced, some beginer, some somewhere in between, but one of the things I’m most proud of is probably the simplest: my free alphabet. Because this one really does capture my intention: it’s a really easy chart you can paint yourself in less than 5 minutes, and feel way less pressure about messing up if it’s your first time stitching, or maybe even self finishing. If you ruin it, its not the end of the world, because 1. It didn’t cost you anything, and 2. You can try again.

I mean it when I saw that really matters to me.

I share things even when sharing them creates problems for me

Selling charts is probably a perfect example of choosing my values over the easiest business decision.

Sharing my designs digitally creates all sorts of problems.

It makes copying easier. It means someone can paint (or badly DIY print) one of my designs from a chart and the quality of the finished product is completely outside my control. For personal use, literally, who cares. But over time I’ve realised that there can therefore be versions of my work floating around in the world that don’t necessarily represent what I would personally produce to sell.

From a pure brand-control perspective, people say I shouldn’t do it.

But hang on a minute!!! I don’t care about ‘brand control’ - I care about stitching. Making decisions from a place of brand control would be just about the most fake thing I could do.

So I’m going to ignore that and focus on what feels right.

And weirdly, I feel similarly about Etsy.

There are plenty of reasons that, now I have my own website, I could decide I’ve “graduated” from Etsy, which is what all the other proper needlepoint designers do.

But I don’t really believe in that.

I actually think Etsy is an incredible place for people to discover small businesses. I could go on a whole separate rant about how strongly I believe we should encourage people to just try starting the business, rather than making it feel like something you need permission to do. Especially for women.

So I stayed on Etsy, and then recently, when somebody stole my designs and started selling them on Amazon, something interesting happened.

My Etsy history helped me.

To my suprise, the amazon copyright claim process was easier because I was on Etsy. Etsy was a third party historical record that can’t be faked, verifying the designs are mine, with dates of reviews and even stitched images of designs!

The thing that perhaps wasn’t the most sophisticated e-commerce decision ended up protecting me.

Sometimes the unconventional decision works in ways you couldn’t possibly have predicted, just by following what feels right for me, instead of what everyone else does (or what everyone else says I should do).

Then there are the canvases

This has probably been my biggest experiment of all.

I have tested printing options from different companies and different countries. I’ve tested different canvas types, different printing methods, different suppliers and different levels of quality.

I have spent an enormous amount of time and money on this, and some of that time and money, frankly, has been completely wasted. At this point its definitely thousands of dollars I’ve wasted on testing.

I’ve ordered things I didn’t like. I’ve tried something else. I’ve thought I had found the answer and then realised I could do better. I’ve had things reprinted. I’ve tested again.

And I still test.

I could have followed what everyone else was doing from the beginning, and just paint, but it didn’t feel right for me. I wanted to explore whether printing could give me something that was faster, accessible, and accurate, and ethical.

Printing comes with it’s own headaches because they are so many bad print jobs out there, so printing gets a bad name because bad prints are indeed bad. So anyone who sells printed canvases will often be judged by a person’s past exprience of printing (which unfortunately is often bad). But good prints, are excellent, and more accurate than hand painting.

I have now tested enough options that I feel extremely confident about the premium stitch-printed canvases I sell.

I tested and tested and tested until I found the product I wanted, and I will probably continue testing, because at the heart of this, it’s all part of creative play.

But I actually think that’s a good thing, because I want to become an expert in this.

An expert because I have handled the canvases, ordered the samples, stitched them, made mistakes, tried alternatives, compared them and learned what actually matters, and what actually works.

And I actually stitch these things

This might be the thing I feel strongest about.

I stitch my own designs - but not a few, like…a LOT.

I genuinely believe I have stitched more of my own designs in the past year than any other needlepoint designer in the world. It feels a bit up myself to say that, but I truly haven’t seen any other designers stitching as much as I do.

I don’t know how I could prove that, obviously 😅

I’ve stitched somewhere around 30 of my own designs in the past year, )I’ve geneuinely lost count) including four or five of my village houses.

In my opinion, actions speak louder than words.

I am not designing something, putting it online and moving on.

I am in it.

I’m stitching these canvases for hours and hours and hours. And every time I stitch one, I’m thinking - could that area be better? does that colour work?

As someone who could endlessly test and tweak and change, it can honestly be a bit torturous sometimes.

Not only do I stitch my own designs but I stitch canvases of other designers I admire, and find myself learning and appreciating the talen of these designers so much.

I am constantly testing, refining, and trying to make my next version better.

I’m not perfect, but I can say this: I’m really really trying.

Which brings me to my samples

Oh, the samples.

I have agonised over this.

Actually agonised. Like laid awake at night thinking about it.

I’ve had advice from e-commerce experts telling me conclusively: do not to sell a cheaper version of the same product. It can confuse customers, and dilute the premium product. And especially in this world of destashing etc, it can complicate the brand.

But there’s that word again - the brand. yuck.

I appreciate that the advice is all completely sensible. And yet I keep coming back to the same thought:

If I can offer someone a cheaper way to stitch one of my designs, why shouldn’t I?

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My sample canvases aren’t the same quality as my premium stitch-printed canvases. That’s why they’re samples. They’re products from my testing and development process that are still perfectly stitchable, but aren’t the final premium product I eventually selected. Sometimes the margins are smaller, sometimes there are a few colours that are too close together, or hard to see.

I don’t need to sell them. It would actually make my business considerably simpler if I didn’t.

But if someone can buy one for less money, stitch a design they otherwise wouldn’t have bought, perhaps try needlepoint for the first time, or feel brave enough to try self-finishing because the canvas didn’t cost them as much...

I want that option to exist. Like I truly feel a pull in my gut to do it.

Even though it creates quite a headache for me.

I’ll be honest with you, I still worried about having different qualities of my designs out in the world, and people getting confused.

I’ve worried about how clearly I can differentiate them.

And then, because apparently the universe has a sense of humour, I decided beautiful branded tape would solve some of this.

I ordered two different kinds: one for my premium canvases and one clearly marked Studio Sample.

Perfect!

…except after 8 weeks of waiting, the package disappeared.

And ordering again takes about another eight weeks and cost hundreds more dollars.

Of course it does 🫠

For a while I used backup white tape, and I eventually decided I wasn’t happy enough with that either.

If you’ve been here a while you already remember that story. So I went ahead with blank tape, and a couple of canvases even went out with no tape when I became unhappy with the quality of the plain tape. I just wanted to get canvases out to people so they could start stitching sooner.

Was it the perfect polished business decision?

Probably not.

Was it the decision that felt right to me?

Yes.

I like that I offer a range of things

✅The premium canvas.

✅The Studio Sample.

✅The digital chart.

✅The free chart.

✅The free tutorials.

In my mind, these things don’t compete with each other, they are just meeting different people where they are at, and getting them in the door.

And if the ultimate goal is to get more people stitching, I want as many doors as I can reasonably create.

I don’t want to gatekeep what I’m learning

I don’t consider myself an authority on needlepoint, and I don’t consider myself an expert needlepoint finisher (neither will you if you’ve seen some of my horrific finishes when I was first trying it!!)

But I will share with you what I’ve learned, and I won’t gatekeep it. When I learn something new, I’ll share that too. And when I completely mess something up, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll tell you about that as well.

That is basically what my YouTube channel has always been.

It’s not: I know the correct way and I’m going to teach you.

It’s: I tried this. Here’s what happened. Watch me make a bunch of mistakes, here’s how to avoid them lol

And perhaps I’ve just realised that this is also how I’m building my business.

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Maybe I’m just building this the messy way

My website still needs work.

I’ve never done the beautiful professional photoshoot of myself holding one of my canvases.

Maybe I should. Maybe I will one day.

I have to admit, while I really love the business side of this, I kind of hate the ‘brand’ side of it. The proper photoshoot, the selection of consistent fonts and colours, setting up the website with FAQs etc. I just hate that part. So you can always expect me to be a bit scrappy on that side of things (sorry).

Luckily I have my shipping partner to keep that side of things running very smoothly and I have to say it’s been SUCH a good decision and one area where I have absolutely zero headaches.

Anyway I’m always working to do things better, but I’m going to do them in the order that makes sense to me, and I’m not going to apologise for not following somebody else’s rule book. In fact, I think that’s what I’m most proud of.

Because I think the beauty is actually in standing in my authenticity, even when that feels (sometimes very) uncomfortably different to what everyone else is doing.

I want to test, think, play, be creative.

I want to order the sample and see what happens.

I want to stitch the canvas myself (usually with DMC floss)

I want to find the problem and make the next one better.

And usually the output of that is messy.

But the output is also a business where I can look at the decisions I’m making and understand exactly why I’m making them. And while sometimes it might feel harder, it also, always, feels true to myself.

But because I keep coming back to the same question:

What would I want if I were the stitcher?

and I suppose also

What feels right for me?

And increasingly, when I have a difficult business decision to make, I think that’s the only rule book I really need.

So yes, I might continue making some decisions that make my life harder.

I might keep offering the thing that creates extra admin because it makes needlepoint more accessible. I might keep sharing information I could charge for.

I will keep selling charts, and samples.

And speaking of Samples, the sample club is a good example in itself - I am not selling a bundle of items you don’t need, or adding fancy packacing to inflate the price - it’s just simply, a sample canvas. That’s it.

I chose to do it that way because personally I hate all that extra stuff, and it’s what, as a stitcher I’d want - even if the canvas was an imperfect sample. But still, I’d be lying if I said I sometimes haven’t been second guessing this sample club because I still feel like it’s not ‘good enough’ compared to all the more ‘professional’ ones.

I know my values but that little negative voice always creeps in from time to time.

I suppose I have had to let go of following the rules, and let go of perfection, because the alternative was letting go of my integrity. So I’m staying true to showing up the way that feels authentic to me, even if it’s a little scrappy.

I don’t really want to build the neatest needlepoint business, I want to build the needlepoint business that feels true to myself.

And I will definitely keep stitching my own canvases.

Autumn Sweater - link here

Turkey Goose - link here

Ugg Boots - link here

Fall Doorway - link here

Thanksgiving Parade: link here

Pumpkin doorway - link here

Everything Fall - link here

Mallard - link here

Fall Dilly Dallying - link here

Mini Pumpkin - link here

Thanksgiving Round - link here

Fall Tote Bag: link here

Eat More Pie - link here

Fall Stoop - link here

Rain Boots - link here

Tis the Season - link here

Autumn chart - link here

That’s all for now, see you next week!

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Anyway, overall, it was a success, and a lot of people got canvases at a cheaper price, and if that helps someone try needlepoint, gift it to a friend, or even feel a bit more brave to try self finishing, that truly makes me so happy.

But there was a problem. I made a mistake. I suppose with these things, there is always something that will go wrong, it can’t all play out perfectly, and of course hiccups are part of the process. Now as an ADHD person, I’m pretty used to making silly errors, so pretty much anticipated something to go wrong and had spare stock up my sleeve in case something went wrong. And something did go wrong - with the only design I didn’t have enough spares of 🫠.

It was the flower bear design, so if you purchased this, your order took a little while to ship out (and some still haven’t). Let me explain. I ship my canvases to my fulfilment partner, and I have to pack them all up and barcode them, count etc, and make sure all the numbers are correct. Then, once it’s received by them, I have to wait for them to process, scan them into their system, and then I can see what stock is available.

When I started the sample sale, I knew the package had arrived, but it hadn’t been scanned in yet. I didn’t think it really mattered because I had double and triple counted the canvases, so was certain of all of the quantities. But somehow, the Flower Bear, was completely gone. So there were zero. I still don’t know what happened, but I can be pretty certain it would have been my fault. Anyway, it wasn’t until the sample sale was over that I realised it. So it had already been sold.

I had a few spares at my home in the UK, and I shipped them express to the fulfilment centre, and so some people were able to get their hands on them. But a handful of people missed out. I always come back to this, what would a stitcher want? I of course offered refunds to those people but I know what I would want as a stitcher: I’d prefer to wait and get the discounted canvas eventually (better late than never!). So of course I immediately placed an order for some replacement ones (and they are in production right now). But since I was placing an order, I added some other designs too. Things I want samples of, but I figured since I’m doing an order, why not add some extras…..

But buying more of this Flower Bear canvas made me think - why couldn’t I just order more all the time and make it a regular thing, like a subscription? It could mean that I don’t have the hoard canvases for an occasional sample sale, and I could share more regularly with you, plus with a subscription I’d have a better idea of knowing how many to order. Then any leftover could accumulate to a sample sale at the end of the year or something. I’m still figuring that part out.

I know there are other subscriptions out there, and I would do it a bit differently.

What it would not be: filled with things you don’t want, extras you dont need, plastic junk, stuff for the sake of stuff to increase the price

What it would be: just an affordable sample canvas, that’s it!

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I’d keep it deliberately simple. I don’t want to spend my time sourcing threads or ridiculous merch or items you don’t need or want just for the sake of charging more. It would just simply be a sample canvas, each month, (I think about $30), and that’s it!

It would be that way because honestly, as a stitcher, that’s all I’d be interested in. I’ve subscribed to these types of things before and all the extras really just start to feel like a burden of junk eventually. So I’d skip that part altogether.

I have some ideas about maybe also having one random subscriber each month being given a bonus canvas or something. I might occasionally have other items available or as bonuses, but I generally don’t intend to over complicate beyond just a simple, affordable, maybe slightly imperfect canvas every month.

The biggest hurdle, aside from the tech side of getting it set up, is making sure that I have enough new designs for it. And this kind of links in with some decisions I have been making behind the scenes, because in order to make it possible, I need to make sure I have enough time to design more. I’m feeling pretty confident.

Designing takes a lot longer than you’d think, and my inspiration comes and goes, so I just need to feel really certain that I could keep up with the demand. If I am not spending all my time taping my canvases, I can make it work (fingers crossed).

So here’s where we are: You can signup for notifications here. If you’re interested, signup, and it helps me see how many people are interested. I am currently testing with a very small batch of people to see if I can get it all running smoothly (basically just figuring out the backend stuff, I’ve never done this before!!) If you sign up, you’ll be the first to be invited when new spots are available.

It’s going to help me understand how many I should order and figure out logistics etc, or if it’s even worth continuing to do.

Signup to be notified here

See you next week!

Someone had taken my work (I think badly screenshotted it!!), uploaded it, and was selling it as their own. The prices were suspiciously low (less than $60 for a ‘hand painted canvas’ of my village designs including threads and accessories) - the screenshots were low quality, their listings all had one star reviews from people who found what they bought to be unstitchable.

I knew this would happen one day. It was always a question of when.

And I know why.

My Village houses are one of the best sellers I have on Etsy, and Etsy is searchable in a way that makes “what’s selling well right now” pretty easy to find if you know where to look, and lots of people make a business by just copying best sellers. On top of that, I sell charts, so it’s easy to (try to) copy. It’s a risk that comes with selling charts at all, and I’ve always known it.

So I’ve been sitting with a decision this week. Because there are two “easy” fixes here, and I want to talk about why I’m not doing either of them.

The first easy fix is to stop selling charts altogether. Only sell printed canvases, keep everything harder to replicate. The second is to come off Etsy, since that searchability is part of what makes me an easy target in the first place.

I’m not doing either.

And I want to explain why, because I think it says more about what this brand actually is than the copy situation does.

Above all, let me be clear, I love needlepoint.

I care, genuinely, about people getting into needlepoint at whatever price point works for them. That’s not a marketing line, I really truly care about it. More than that, I also want people to give self finishing a try. It’s why I ran a sample sale a few weeks ago, and why there will very likely be another one down the line (I hope to do again when it makes sense).

It’s why a lot of my bundles are set up so that you buy once and keep getting new designs added to it as I release them, rather than paying again and again. And it’s why I have a lot of completely free designs available too: like a thirteen mesh alphabet ornament set, every letter, designed to stitch up in under five minutes so you can try self finishing on something that costs you the price of a bit of canvas and thread, not an expensive piece you’re scared to ruin.

None of that works if I stop selling charts. None of it works if I leave Etsy, which for a lot of people is genuinely where they start and discover needlepoint and give it a try. Giving either of those up would be simple. It would also mean giving up the actual core value of what I want to bring to the needlepoint world.

So here’s what I’m doing instead.

I’ve reported the listing, obviously, and I’ll go through that process every time it happens again, (because it will happen again). Amazon is a marketplace. Anyone can upload anything, the same way anyone can on eBay, or facebook marketplace. I can get one listing taken down, but there will be another one at some point. That’s just the reality of selling anything that can be copied, for as long as I keep selling it.

But here’s the thing about “anyone can upload anything on there.” That includes me.

So I’ve decided to start listing on Amazon myself. Not everything, just maybe one or two designs, fulfilled through the same partner who already handles my other fulfilment. The idea is simple: if my work is going to end up on Amazon whether I like it or not, I’d rather it be there as an authentic listing that customers can actually trust, and it makes it far easier for me to report copycats against, than leave that space open for someone else to fill instead.

My goal isn’t to sell everything on there, just maybe one or two designs to ‘mark my terriroty’ and have a presence there so copycats stay away.

Will anything actually sell on there? I have no idea, and that’s not really the point. It’s more of a territory marking thing than anything else.

I know there’s a lot of feeling in the needlepoint world that Amazon is the opposite of what this craft is meant to be. Slow, handmade, considered, and Amazon is none of those things. I get it, I’ve felt that resistance myself while going back and forth on this. But when I actually sat with what I want - which is to keep charts accessible, keep Etsy as a starting point for beginners, and keep offering things at every price point, staying off Amazon and just letting it happen to me anyway didn’t actually protect any of that. It just meant I had no say in how it happened.

So this isn’t me giving up on the slow, considered side of what I do. It’s me trying to protect it, by taking up the one bit of territory that was going to get taken either way.

To be upfront: it won’t be my full catalogue, just some things I’ve got ready, and honestly that’s not a lot yet. But something is better than nothing, and better than spending every few months fighting to get a stranger’s copy taken down while my own version isn’t even there.

I’m still a little unsure about all of it if I’m honest, but I think it’s the right call. I’m starting the process now. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

As always, everything I have available will be on my website here, there are now 29 different designs available to buy. I’m working really hard to have even more available in the coming months, so stay tuned for new releases.

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Even though summer is coming to an end, I don’t want to let it go. I’m finding myself wanting to stitch (and also design!!) some summertime things, especially leaning towards a euro summer vibe. Here are some of my favourites currently.

Hydrangea Aperol bottle - link here

Shiny Shell - canvas here (restocking next week) and chart here

Beach Wedding Needlepoint Canvas - canvas here

Positano Needlepoint Canvas - canvas here or chart here

Tennis Ball Ice Cream - canvas here or chart here

Summer Lake Canvas - chart here

Wharf House - canvas here

Aperol Spritz - canvas here

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Palm Beach - canvas here

Spritz Cart - canvas here

Greece book - canvas here

Beach Shells - canvas here

Euro Summer Pillow - canvas here

This last one is currently being printed, and so will be available very soon! You can signup here to be notified once it’s live, or just get the chart here.

See you next week!

It’s been a while since I last updated you on my finishes and WIPS so here we are! I have to say, I’m now getting genuinely good at finishing, and my one piece of advice is this: give it a try. And then, don’t stop trying. My progress has not been linear, I have continually had humbling setbacks, just when I get confident, but I can’t stress this enough: every failure teaches you something.

A note on the links below: a lot of these are my own designs and a lot of them are out of stock but let me say: almost all of them will be restocked within the next week or so, shipping mid august at the very latest. So if there is something you see and you like, make sure you signup for notifications because you will get a notification very very soon and be able to purchase!

Positano Medallion

Link to canvas here

This design is sooo detailed, and it has so many colours, and believe it or not, I actually added more colours. I just wanted to mix in as many as I could to really capture the essence of Positano.

Disco Lobster

Link to canvas here

I love how this one turned out! Even though it’s a weird shape, because the curves are fairly gentle, it was a reasonably easy finish. I love it so much

Tennis Ball Ice Cream

Canvas here

Chart here

I have been resisting finishing this one for a while, because I want to turn it into a stand up, but I’m scared, because I’ve never done a gussetted stand up before. I have an idea of how I wan to do it, so I just need to go ahead and give it a try.

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Police Bear

Canvas here

Chart here

My cute little police bear with handcuffs and a donut! I did a really good job of finishing this one, it was one of the first ones that I tried a thinner cording (which I think is more advanced because it hides less mistakes). I pulled it off!

Doctor bear

Canvas Here

Chart Here

Hugo Spritz

Canvas here

NYC Hot dog

Canvas Here

Chart Here

I’m really looking forward to finishing this one because I think it’s going ot be quite an easy shape to finish well…fingers crossed!

Goldfish in a bag

Canvas Here

Chart Here

This is such a good little one to do if you’re feeling like a small project. There are a few canvases still in stock now :)

Pistachio

Chart Here

Canvas Here

Oyster

Chart Here

Canvas Here

This one I also designed with a blue stripe background. I just love how the colours of the gradient turned out in this one.

Trench Coat

Canvas here

Sometimes I think that decorative stitches can be over used, but in this one I really feel like the decorative stitches added to the overall look of the final piece. Also can we just have a moment for the glorious hydrangeas!! I have now moved house so won’t be able to take photos like this for a while (don’t worry, I’ve already planted 6 and an planning more, but will have to wait a few years until they look this good!!)

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Balance Bike

Canvas Here

Chart Here

I love this one so much, it was really enjoyable to stitch. Also the canvas is currently almost half price!!!!

Bow ornament

Canvas Here

I always get asked about the background colour for this one, its DMC 340. But another thing I need to mention is just the stunning hydrangeas again. Aren’t they terrific!!

Las Vegas

Canvas Here

This one is supposed to be for an insert but I’m going to finish it into an ornament with rounded corners.

Moses parting the seas

Canvas here

Chart here

This is the fourth installment in my religious medallions series. I just love the pastel colours and the way that the water looks. I like to try to make these designs a more refreshing and pretty version of the classic stories we all know, so this felt like a natural one to do.

Mini chilli

Canvas Here

Chart Here

This one is a crowd favourite, and i get why: it’s an easy stitch (also easy to paint if you want to try!!) and a joyful colour, just a fun, bright, lovely thing. I’ve seen some people make these for friends as a gift and I think that’s such a great idea.

Andy Cohen

Canvas Here

Chart Here

This one is a long story, and it’s been on quite a journey, in fact, I stitched it twice. The first time I HATED the colours so I went back to the drawing board to get them right. By the way, if you are choosing colours, the single best tool I have to make my colour choices always perfect is the DMC colour book, it has swatches of the actual threads so you can really select the *right* shade of the colour you are looking for. It also is critical for things like this where theres multiple shares of the same colour and you really need them to tie together nicely. Skin is particularly hard because if you get it wrong the person can look really weird, but I think I nailed it for this one. I will be sharing my list of exact colours soon so that you can copy if you want.

That’s it for now, see you next week!

So as you know, most of my canvases are stitch printed, and something you may not know about the process of printing is the process of optimisation. This is the testing phase of seeing how the colours come out, because as we all know about printers, they don’t necessarily come out exactly how they look on screen. It’s a similar process that happens with paint: if you want two colours close together, even if you choose the colours perfectly, if they are too close, it’s too hard to tell the difference between them. So for painting and printing, there’s some optimisation that needs to be done to get those colours right. It’s all about finding that balance between the way you want the colours to look, vs being readable on a canvas. Charts don’t have this problem so much because they can use symbols to differentiate colours that are otherwise very close together and hard to tell apart.

My oyster design is a really good example to show this. See how the colours look like a gradient and really smoothly transition? That’s because I designed it to specifically do that, and have colours that are so close together that it can create that effect. But if this was painted or printed true to that effect, it would be really hard and almost impossible to really see where each colour goes. So I have to work to get the balance right, to be true to the design, but easy for a stitcher.

So the solution is to get clever, and add contrast, and maybe even some slightly different colours so it’s easy to follow. Here’s an example of a sample print of this where I have tested colour combinations.

This oyster one also has an error that I have since fixed: the stripes are uneven. Originally I wanted it that way (and maybe you do too!) but when it came time to sttich it myself I wanted the stripes to be consistent. As you can see, these aren’t deal breakers, they are just little things that you want to be aware of before you buy, hence why I’m making this post.

So I have done this process with a lot of designs. And I have a bunch of samples. Some I’m not happy with the colours, and overall, I’d say, the problem you come across the most is that there might be two colours in the design that are too close together and hard to differentiate. Overall, the stitch printing is perfect, it’s just the colours that are sometimes tricky, and often the margins are smaller (more like 1 inch). I had this pile of them and I kept thinking they weren’t good enough to sell in my store, but I kept looking at them and thinking: but they’re totally stitchable. In fact, they are what I now stitch, because they’re…there.

As you know I keep coming back to my overall thoughts on all of this: what would I want as a stitcher? and the answer is A SAMPLE SALE. I feel like I’ve resisted because of the one or two people who won’t get it…but most people get it, and think ‘yeah I’m happy to get a sample which needs a few bits of extra attention to save some money’.

I know exactly who this sample sale is for: it’s for the type of person who might already be using charts, and sees a discounted imperfect canvas as a great in between option to stitch and just have to problem solve a few bits. It’s perfect for someone wanting to stock up and save money, it’s perfect for someone who stitches really fast and gets through a lot of canvases (I see you). A lot of them are also really great for beginners, who might be new to stitching, or new to self finishing, and want a small, low pressure project to get started with.

I honestly just want more people to stitch, and stitch more. I love it when I see my designs stitched. So I really sincerely hope that doing this sample sale helps people get their hands on these, and stitch them, and enjoy them.

Now I need to be honest with you about one more thing: a lot of these canvases really don’t have any flaws. I’m writing this post to focus on the worst you could expect, but most things you get will probably be better than I’ve made it seem here. But I just want to be really clear about what to expect because I’d hate for someone to feel confused or mislead. While it might not be the typical print quality you get in my store, it’s a sample sale, so they are, you know….samples.

I’m just clearing out all these things because I’d rather share them with like minded people than have them wasted in my cupboard because they aren’t ‘good enough’.

Some are taped, some have fabric bias tape (I’ve been using these to test different options) and most of them are untaped. It’s the nature of a sample sale, you get what you get, it’s not perfect, but here’s the good part: they are at least 50% off. I don’t think there is anything over $30. As I write this, I feel like I was supposed to lead with that info - but I feel like substack is my place where I can just write authentically rather than think about what someone clicks on. So I’ve buried the lead, but whatever. Lucky you for getting this far down and reading it. I kind of like knowing the people who really read my substack posts get rewarded for it at the end. You are my favourite people!

Anyway, the sample sale is live now, I hope you enjoy.

Access the sample sale here

You know that thing where you start to notice you keep saying the same word over and over and it starts to lose all meaning? That’s tape for me right now. I have been thinking about, talking about, obsessing over, and being actively slowed down by tape for weeks. And I’m done. I have to just tell you the whole story.

Let me back up.

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know I’ve been working on getting canvases properly in stock and fulfilled through a third-party logistics company in the US. The idea is that instead of processing every single order myself, I prepare the canvases, send them in batches to the fulfilment centre, and they live there, ready to ship. It means things are faster and cheaper for you, instead of every order being shipped individually from the UK. Long term, I want everything to just always be available. Someone wants a Wisteria House? It’s there. No drops, no waiting, no “back soon.” That’s the goal.

It’s a big shift, and I won’t pretend it’s been seamless. The Village collection presale sold out, which is brilliant, but it also means there’s a lot of moving parts right now as I build up proper stock. The first batch went off to the logistics centre, and that part actually worked really well. Smooth. Straightforward. I was feeling good. (you can see the canvases that are there and ready to buy now here)

And then: tape.

Here’s the thing about tape. I had canvases ready to go. All I was waiting for was the tape - specifically, custom tape with my branding on it, which I’d ordered and was supposedly on its way. We were also mid-house move at the time (more on that in approximately every conversation I’ve had this year), so knowing it was arriving imminently, I made a call to just do what I could, use whatever tape I had, and get a small test batch out the door before we moved. Figuring I’d sort the rest properly once we were settled.

Totally fine.

Except then I moved house and got completely distracted, and somewhere in among all of that... the tape arrived. At an office in London - I knew it was going there, so it didn’t get mixed up with the house move, but also it meant that I wasn’t there to receive it. So when I went looking for it, I couldn’t find it.

I have been into London three times searching for this package. Three times. It has, as far as I can tell, simply vanished. It’s hardly worth stealing, it has no value to anyone in the world except me. It is tape. And the only person who can check the CCTV to figure out what happened to it is, of course, on holiday. So here I am.

Now. I have to tell you a secret, because it explains why I’m so hung up on this.

There are actually two types of tape that I ordered. And the reason there are two is because I have been quietly planning a sample sale. ssshhh!!

Here’s the thing about my printing process: when I’m developing a new design, I do test prints to check the colour separation. Even if a printer produces accurate colours, that doesn’t mean your eye can actually distinguish between two very similar shades sitting next to each other. Imagine two slightly different browns - on screen they look different, in person they’re almost impossible to tell apart. So I print samples to check this before I go to final production.

Those test prints are a lower quality print but totally stitchable. They’re just not always perfect. Maybe two colours are a little close. Generally its just sometimes some colour problems or bleeding. Nothing that would stop you from stitching a beautiful piece - but not what I’d be happy selling as a premium canvas.

For ages I’ve been sitting on a pile of these, telling myself I can’t sell them because I don’t want anyone to stumble across a sample, not realise what it is, and think that’s the standard quality I produce. I kept worrying: what if someone posts it on Instagram without context? What if someone destashes it in a Facebook group and the next person has no idea it’s a sample?

But then I kept coming back to the same question I always come back to: what would I actually want as a stitcher?

And as a stitcher, I would absolutely buy a slightly imperfect canvas at a lower price. I’d love that. I’m happy to do a bit of figuring out. I don’t need everything to be flawless - I just want to stitch. And I know a lot of you feel the same way.

So I’ve been planning to make these available. But I really wanted the sample tape to make it unmistakably clear: this is a studio sample. Not a premium product. So there’s no confusion, no room for misinterpretation, or misunderdstanding the quality to expect from me.

That tape is also in the lost package.

While I wait to figure out whether it’s gone forever or just very well hidden, I’ve been testing other options. Fabric binding is one I’ve been exploring for a while, and I genuinely like it - it’s slower, but it’s nice. I’ve also been looking into custom-printed ribbon or fabric that could say “sample” around the edge, though I’m still working out the details of that one (the stitching does tend to cover the edges, which slightly defeats the purpose).

I’ve also been wrestling with this question of consistency. There’s a part of me that keeps saying: everything should match, there should be one clear system, your branding should be uniform. And then I keep coming back to: I just want to get these things to people. If all I have right now is plain white tape, does that actually matter? As a stitcher, I honestly wouldn’t care.

So I’ve made a decision. I’m not waiting. I’m just going to keep going with what I have. Premium canvases will have plain white tape. And for the samples, some might have fabric binding where I’ve been practising, but most of them will just go out untaped - they’re samples after all, they’re priced as samples, and if you’re reading this, you understand the story.

(Speaking of which I had a realisation: I also sell digital charts. Anyone who buys one can print or paint their own canvas at whatever quality they like and post it on the internet and that’s completely fine. I’ve been tying myself in knots worrying about quality control for the sample sale, and then I remembered... I literally don’t have control over that anyway. So let’s not get too precious about it.)

There is one small potential headache I should mention, because if it affects you I want you to know it’s on my radar. And its anothher tape saga if you can believe it.

Some of the canvases I packaged in the first batch were sealed in cellophane with tape, and a few of the ones that didn’t make it into that shipment - sitting here for about a week - have started to come undone. Hot weather, not stuck down well enough, who knows. If you receive something that’s come loose in transit, please do let me know. I’m watching this closely and it’s yet another reason I’m exploring alternatives to tape. (I can’t believe I just wrote “yet another reason I’m exploring alternatives to tape.” This is my life now.)

Here’s where things stand and what’s coming:

There will be a small selection of sample canvases available in the near future - probably within the next month or so. These are mostly test prints: totally stitchable, ninety percent there, occasionally with two colours that are slightly close together and might need a quick look at the image to distinguish. A handful are painted ones that are slightly imperfect. Some will have tape, some fabric binding, some nothing. It’s a mixed bag and I’m calling it as it is. It’s a sample sale after all.

I’ve been stitching off a Wisteria House sample myself, and honestly? The only issue is that the white and off-white around the doorway and at the very top are hard to differentiate. Everything else is clear and easy. I didn’t even need the chart, I just glanced at the image for those couple of spots. It’s not for everyone, but for someone who loves stitching, wants to save a bit of money, and is happy to do a small bit of problem solving? It’s perfect.

These samples will not be for everyone, and that’s fine. But I think there are a lot of people reading this who this is exactly for.

If you’re one of them - keep an eye out. You’ll hear it here first.

And in the meantime, if you have any ideas about how to label samples cleanly without it taking forever... I’m all ears. Genuinely. I’ve been considering iron-on labels. Anything is on the table at this point.

Over and above the samples, premium prints are on the way too - there’s stock travelling to the logistics centre right now, and more to follow. The dream of everything always being in stock is still very much alive. It’s just taking a bit longer to build than I’d hoped. I suppose these things always do.

More updates very soon. If there’s a specific design you’re after, the restock alert is the fastest way to know.

Thanks for being here for all of this. Even the tape bits, and I hope that next week I won’t talk about tape at all, although unfortunately I can’t make any promises!

x Phoebe

Let’s talk about choosing thread colors, because I have some things I want to explain.

This comes up a lot, and I think it’s worth a proper post, because the situation is actually a bit different depending on whether you’re stitching from one of my digital files or from a canvas. So I’m going to cover both.

Digital files first.

My digital patterns come as Stitchly files, which means the DMC colors are already loaded in. I know a lot of designers don’t do this, but I do, because honestly - as a stitcher myself - it’s just so much better. The tracking, the organization, all of it. I always make decisions based on ‘what would I want to buy?’ and I wish more people sold stitchly files, so that’s what I do.

Here’s the thing though. Some DMC colors just don’t translate well on screen. A shade that looks gorgeous in real life can look genuinely weird or ugly digitally, and vice versa. So when I design, I’m choosing colors that look right on screen - that convey “darker green” and “lighter green” - but those specific DMC codes might not always be the best real-life choice for your project.

So my advice: use the colors in the file as a guide for the families and relationships between colors (this one’s darker, this one’s warmer, etc.), but look at them yourself and find what actually looks good to you.

Which brings me to my number one tip, and honestly the thing that has most improved my own color choices: the DMC color card. Especially if you don’t have a local needlepoint shop and you’re buying online. It has actual thread samples, and - this is the bit that really helps - they’re grouped together in families. So you can see three shades of brown sitting next to each other, or all the cool blues together, and you can actually compare them properly. When I’m choosing between two shades of red, being able to see them physically next to each other changes everything. I’ve made so many better decisions since using it. You can get it here

I’m also in the process of building out color guides for my designs: a little image in each listing showing the actual threads I used when I stitched it. That’s going to take time, because I stitch these myself (yes I’m fast, but it still takes time!). But it’s something I care about. If there’s an error in my pattern, I’m going to find it too - I’m stitching right there with you. So these guides will come. Just slowly.

Now, canvases.

This is a slightly different situation, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot as I’ve been getting my canvases created.

Even if you pick two colors that look beautiful together, if they’re too close in tone, it becomes really hard to see the difference between them on canvas, even in good lighting. So what has to happen is the contrast gets pushed. Lighter shades go lighter, darker shades go darker. Not because that’s what the design is “supposed” to look like, but because it’s the only way to make it readable. Charts don’t have this problem so much because you can zoom in, and even use symbols to differentiate between similar colours

I’ve noticed this with some canvases from other designers that I have stitched before. I chose the colours based on what I saw on the canvas, and honestly I slightly regret it - there’s too much contrast between them. In hindsight, a subtler difference would have looked more realistic. But that’s the tension: contrast for readability vs. contrast for realism. You’re always trying to find the balance.

This is true of basically every canvas you’ll ever stitch, not just mine. The color differences between shades of the same color are often exaggerated on purpose. And knowing that can actually help you, because sometimes the right call is to go closer together in real life than the canvas suggests. The DMC color card helps here too, for exactly the same reason: you can look at two shades of pink next to each other and see if the difference is subtle enough to look right.

But ultimately, it’s your project. There are no rules here. I just want you to understand the thinking behind why things look the way they do, so you can make better decisions for yourself.

I’m figuring this out as I go -the color guides, the canvas translations, all of it. But that’s kind of the whole vibe here. We’re working it out together.

This week’s post is a free chart! Since the football world cup is here I made a design for some seasonal stitching. You can download the file (stitchly + PDF) for free here.

There’s a lot of noise in the needlepoint world about Etsy right now. And honestly? Some of it is fair.

There are sellers on there using AI to generate designs that can’t even be stitched. There are copied patterns, stolen artwork, wildly impractical charts, and more. That is real, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

But here’s what I also know: Etsy is one of the most powerful business tools available to a creative person who is just starting out. And I think the backlash has swung so hard that it’s starting to do real damage - not just to the platform, but to the people on it. People who are genuinely trying, and deserve a chance.

I started on Etsy, and I’m still on Etsy. And I’m never leaving.

Why Etsy matters

When you’re just starting and don’t have an audience, when you don’t have website traffic, when you haven’t yet built the kind of following that sends people directly to you - Etsy is a marketplace that does that work for you. It puts your designs in front of people who are actively looking for them. That is genuinely rare and genuinely valuable, and I think it gets dismissed far too quickly by people who’ve forgotten what it was like to be new.

Almost every major needlepoint designer you know started somewhere humble. Etsy is often that somewhere. The polish comes later. The audience comes later. What Etsy gives you is a starting point, and starting points matter.

I can’t express enough how much I sincerely believe in people giving things a go, starting that business idea, trying that thing that seems hard, trying, failing, learning, trying again. So many people are stuck on the sidelines in life out of fear of judgement/rejection/failure and letting their dreams pass by in the meantime. I want nothing more than to see people try, (and ideally, succeed!!) in whatever small business, creative venture, or kooky creative idea they might have.

So before you write off every small shop with a new listing, I’d ask you to hold a little more space for the possibility that you might be looking at someone’s first proper attempt at building something for themselves and putting themselves out there. And you could be discovering some real treasures! That deserves encouragement, not dismissal.

That said, you do need to know what you’re looking at. So here’s what I actually check before I buy a needlepoint chart from someone I don’t know.

Stitch count and dimensions

This is the first thing I look at, and it tells you a lot. My single-storey village houses sit at around 100 x 100 stitches, which is already a substantial project. A 4-inch ornament on 18-count canvas might be around 70 x 70 stitches - still very achievable, still a real design.

Here’s the thing: designs that look impressive at first glance often look that way because they are enormous. When something is 200 x 200 stitches or more, of course it can hold incredible detail (stockings are about 200 stitches tall for context). But that also makes it much easier to design. The real skill - and this is something I genuinely believe - is doing something beautiful at a small scale. Tight, refined work in a small format is where the skill of designing gets very hard. Anyone can throw detail into a giant canvas.

So when you see a design that seems almost impossibly intricate and beautiful, check the stitch count. If it’s huge, that’s context. It doesn’t make it bad, but it tells you something about the size of the project you’re committing to.

Stitched examples

No designer will have stitched every single one of their designs - that’s just not realistic, and it’s not something I’d hold against anyone. But do they have any stitched photos at all? Even one or two finished pieces tells you that this person has actually sat down with a needle and thread and worked through their own chart. That matters. It tells you the chart is functional, not just decorative.

I work hard to get stitched images for my own designs (I recently finished stitching this south beach medallion), and I think when designers stitch their own things it shows a level of commitment and respect for the people who will be buying and doing the same.

Reviews, and what they can’t tell you

Reviews are useful, but read them carefully. A stack of five-star reviews on digital downloads often just means the file downloaded successfully and the image looked nice. What you really want to see is reviews that mention the stitching experience itself, even better if there are photos of designs people have actually bought and stitched.

You want to consider the age of the shop, no reviews just means no information (yet)

The age of the shop

Here’s where I’ll push back against conventional wisdom a little. A lot of people immediately distrust shops that opened recently, and I understand the instinct. But everyone who ever built anything was new once. Every designer you respect was a month old at some point.

I actually lean towards wanting to support people who just started, especially women and other groups of people who have historically been excluded from entrepreneurship and business ownership. Because trying is brave. Early designs are often imperfect (some of my early work sits in this category, if I’m honest) - but imperfect doesn’t mean worthless, and new doesn’t mean bad.

That said, newness combined with a lack of stitched examples, no reviews, and enormous stitch counts should raise a flag. No single factor disqualifies a shop; it’s the combination that matters.

What type of file are you actually buying?

Most digital needlepoint charts are sold as PDFs. That’s the standard. What I do - and it’s not the norm - is include Stitchly files as well. I do this because as a stitcher myself, Stitchly is infinitely more useful. You can track your progress, navigate the chart easily, and actually use it the way it’s meant to be used rather than fighting with a PDF on your phone. I sell the format I would want to buy.

Not every designer offers this, and that’s fine. But knowing what format you’re getting, and whether it suits how you work, is worth checking before you buy.

Does the design actually make sense to stitch?

Related to stitch count, but slightly different: look at the design itself and ask whether it’s actually achievable. Backgrounds with hundreds of tiny variations, designs with no clear blocks of colour - these are signs that whoever made it has never had to actually stitch it. Good needlepoint design respects the medium. I can tell straight away whether a designer is an experienced stitcher.

The bigger picture

Etsy has problems. Every marketplace does. But the answer to those problems isn’t to avoid it entirely or to treat every small, new, or imperfect seller as a bad actor.

The answer is to shop with your eyes open, to ask the right questions before you buy, and - where you can - to choose to support the people who are genuinely trying to build something real.

I love seeing people start businesses. I mean that sincerely. And I love that Etsy exists as a place where that can happen, where someone with a good idea and a lot of heart can put their work in front of people who want it, without needing a following or a marketing budget or years of industry connections.

That’s not nothing. That’s actually everything, when you’re just starting out.

Give Etsy a chance. Just be a discerning shopper while you’re there 💕

They are so good I’m dedicating an entire Substack post to them. And once you try them, you will get it.

I need you to know about the best scissors in the world. I’m not being dramatic. I get messages on a daily bases from people telling me how much they love these scissors.

Now I don’t say this lightly, because I actually hate a lot of the popular scissors out there. The viral Meghan Markle ones? Awful. They weirdly pinch your hand every time you use them, which should be disqualifying.

These are different.

As someone commented on my TikTok: they are crisp. And they were so right. So crisp that I made an ASMR video just to capture the sound of them cutting. Have a watch:

@phoebedoeseverything1Crisp scissor ASMR #NEEDLEPOINTFINISHING

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They’re tailor’s scissors, which sounds fancy, but at $10 they are genuinely one of those small purchases that makes you wonder how you ever lived without them. Once you have scissors this good, you will become a scissor snob. (Welcome to the club, we have strong opinions and sharp blades.)

Now, what about scissors for your needlepoint projects?

I want to address the Super Snips specifically, because I see them recommended everywhere and I tried them recently and was genuinely horrified. They’re cheap, flimsy, and so blunt you have to snip the same thread three times to actually cut through it. But then somehow the tips are aggressively sharp, and I actually drew blood. Bad in every direction simultaneously.

The small scissors I personally use and love? I can’t find them online to link to, which is deeply annoying. So I’m going to test some alternatives and report back with a proper recommendation. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, if you try these scissors, you will be converted, and soon you will be doing your own posts about how good these are!

Link to the scissors

Before I go, I wanted to let you know that I have been designing and stitching a lot. I have so many fun things coming, but I just wanted to share one of my recent stitches here (photographed amongst my budding hydrangeas of course)

See you next week!

I wanted to do something a little bit different this week, and tell you about all of the things that I’m working on behind the scenes. I haven’t been designing as much as I usually do lately, because I have been absolutely consumed with the project of getting canvases created. There’s a lot of decisions to be made, and it’s all a learning curve, and I’m figuring it out one step at a time.

If you asked me in January of this year if I would ever have my designs available on canvas, I would have said no. I like sharing my digital files, it’s simple, and it’s not even the cost, the work, the complexity and risk, or the logistics. The reason why I didn’t want to do it was because of all the things that could go wrong. Lost packages, errors with tariffs, things getting held up at customs, no to mention just everyday mistakes!!

It just felt all a bit too scary. But as time went on, and people kept asking for more, I thought to myself: life is complicated, things go wrong, I can’t hold myself back out of the fear that something might possibly go wrong one day. Because of course things go wrong! But the good news is we can figure things out. So I explored some options. And as you know, I’ve dipped my toe in the water by working with HappyStitch to help print and fulfil some test drops. And something unexpected happened: I really liked it.

By the way HappyStitch launched last week and have a ton of great designs (including some of mine!) at really affordable prices, you should check them out if you haven’t already.

But since they couldn’t print the village, I still needed to figure out a solution for the village. So I started testing different suppliers. And started looking at getting some extra designs included while I’m at it. Now at this point I know what you might be thinking - why not get them painted? Well, there’s a few reasons. A lot of my designs are particularly complicated and detailed. Some have 20 or even 30 colours. They are just so complex that they make a lot more sense to be printed to ensure accuracy, and to not make them ridiculously expensive. On top of this, printing is simply faster, and it honestly, feels more aligned for me. I’m a very fast person (you’ve probably noticed how fast I stitch), and I need something that can move at my fast (and sometimes chaotic) pace, and honestly, just feels right.

Now with that said, I have been getting a bit into painting so there will be some painted canvases available from time to time, but I’m going to be mostly printed.

So I’ve been testing out various suppliers, reviewing the print quality, accuracy, etc etc. And we are getting very close. I have ordered my first big batch, the samples (were exquisite), and I should have them in the next week or so.

In amongst this I have been fantasising about all the beautiful little touches I can put into a package - a thoughtful note, a free gift, nice tissue paper, etc.

So we should be ready to go, right? Wrong. There’s been two more blockers. (I hope you’re interested in this story by the way because I feel like I’m just writing down all the things that have been floating around my head lately, this feels like some kind of diary entry/stream of consciousness). So the first blocker was the fact that I’m in the UK. Since I’m in the UK, and most of my customers are in the US, this was a big consideration. On top of international shipping being more expensive and slower, it was all getting a bit hard to figure out tariffs because they can be expensive, volatile, and just a pain to deal with, customs can hold up packages randomly, etc. The last thing I wanted to do was have packages getting delayed at customs and then customers getting angry with me. The solution is not what I expected: a 3PL (third party logistics) AKA a US based fulfilment centre, which will hold the stock and fulfil the orders for me. It sounds far too big and scary, but turns out, it’s actually not. This is a game changer, because it means that instead of doing drops, I’m going to be able to have cheaper and faster shipping, PLUS a store that is open all the time, you can order anytime, and on top of that, it would free up my time to design more.

But

I really wanted to do the pretty little handwritten notes…

And this took me to a place I keep coming back to as I make these decisions: instead of thinking from a business/designer perspective, I think about myself as a stitcher (because first and foremost, of course, I am a stitcher). I come back to this question a lot: as a stitcher, as a customer of other needlepoint designs, what would I want? and the answer becomes clear. Let go of the handwritten notes (for now) and get it setup so that more people can get stitching ASAP. Handwritten notes are nice, but what I really want is to start stitching!!!!!!

So that decision is made - instead of fulfilling these myself, they are going to be fulfilled in the US which will allow me to probably get at least double or triple the amount of canvas designs released this year (maybe more!!).

So we are ready to go now.

Oh, but not quite. Because the most difficult and painful and slow part of all of this, has actually been the tape. I’ve ordered some, from a difficult supplier who I believe is ripping me off. But I liked their tape the best out of all the samples I tried, so here we are. So I’m waiting on this bloody tape to arrive and when I explain it to people in my life they are like ‘you can’t seriously be stopping your whole business because of tape?’ And honestly, it does make me stop and think, because it is a bit ridiculous.

Then I come back to the same thing again - what would I think as a stitcher? As a stitcher, and a person who has bought from many different stores, I literally couldn’t care less. I just want to stitch. I would rather get the design that I want with basic tape than wait longer just for the tape that I will cut off once it’s stitched anyway.

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So depending on when everything arrives, I might do the first batch with plain white tape. We will see.

But then I need to get honest with you about something else that has been floating around my head, and that is that I also think about way more than I should is what a potential critic or troll could say. I feel like some people are committed to criticising and hating, and I find that creeping into my mind sometimes.

But what if someone thinks this [tape/packaging/design/etc] isn’t good enough?

As I think these things through, I keep coming back to the same thing - people can literally criticise anything. So I’m better off making decisions that feel right for me, and right for stitchers. At the end of the day I’m doing all of this to connect with people who love what I do - why would I make decisions based on hypothetical (or maybe real lol) people who hate/criticise/troll? So guess what, I’m going to have printed canvases, fulfilled by a logistics company, and they might have basic white tape on them for a little while.

And while I’m being true to myself here’s one more thing I’m going to do: I’m going to release the designs whenever I have them. I feel like I “should” release cohesive collections and plan releases, etc. That’s what proper needlepoint designers do. But the reality is the way that I design is all over the place. I have probably 20 designs right now that I’m working on, there’s 3 village designs, 2 bears, 3 stockings, and a bunch of other half finished designs. I don’t really like to design in collections. It’s just not what I do. And coming back to my perspective as a stitcher, I don’t care about collections, I can only stitch one thing at a time anyway. I know if I were reading all of this I’d be thinking “just release whatever you have! who cares”. So that’s what I’m going to do.

As of right now, my website has a mish mash of different listings, some with proper photos, some with placeholders, it’s honestly quite all over the place. It makes me feel like I’m a bit of a mess but the truth is, I kind of am! I’m an all over the place, creative, and chaotic kind of person. It feels more real, and I’d rather show up a bit imperfectly and figure it out as I go, rather than polish and wait until it’s perfect. So instead of perfect, I’m choosing real. Because it is a truthful reflection of where I’m actually at. I’m in the ‘pulling it all together and setting it up’ phase.

So for now you will see some listings, they are currently all ‘out of stock’. But I’ve listed them for a reason (once again, thinking from a stitcher’s perspective). I know people do drops, but I hate when I don’t even really know what is being released - before I buy I want to have a look, see what the size is, the price, etc. So that’s why I do it that way. So you can see what is coming, and you can signup for notifications in the pink box on every listing, so you will be notified immediately when they are ready (because let’s be honest, I don’t know the exact date they will be ready yet.) This way, you won’t have to check back and get increasingly annoyed and confused. You can just signup for the alert, and know you’ll get an email when it’s ready. I pay extra every month for this feature because I like it so much when other stores have it.

I know we are in this phase of ‘pre setup’ sort of thing, but I intend to always have the page available before designs are actually available to purchase (at least a day or two) whenever there’s a new design coming. I want you to be able to have a look at new listings before they are launched, so you don’t feel as rushed when it’s live. Here’s the link to what’s up so far.

I’m hoping that by the end of the summer I’ll have everything setup and running smoothly, and from there will just release more designs as I have them ready. Maybe I’ll do another status update to let you know how everything is going.

On top of all of this I am trying to design more, manage wholesale orders, move house, organise a 4 year old’s birthday party, and prepare for my parents to visit for the next 6 weeks.

So let’s see how I manage to pull this altogether.

If you made it this far, thank you for being on this journey with me!

I’ve been sitting on this project for a while, not because I wasn’t excited about it - quite the opposite - but because I had this idea that I should finish it before I talked about it. Classic mistake. It’s not finished. It might not be finished for a while. And honestly, that’s kind of the whole point.

But before I get into it, let me rewind. I designed this alphabet last year with one goal in mind: colour swapping. It’s only two colours (plus white), so it’s super easy to colour swap. But because of the design, they’re not that easy to paint. It’s possible, but it is a bit of a pain because you can get lost quite easily (as me how I know). So I’ve found a solution.

I’ve partnered with a brand called Happy Stitch, who provides print on demand canvases. They have just launched today and have a range of designs including some of mine: you can get all of the metallic Alphabet (plus some other favourites like the Silly Goose and Palm Sunday, Nativity, and Noahs Ark!).

No drops, no waiting, always in stock. Worth knowing if canvases are more your thing.

Now. The alphabet.

Here’s how this started. My friend put a paper garland around her christmas tree for her baby’s first birthday. I loved it and just loved the idea of a needlepoint version of that (on a christmas tree or not!)

And then I started thinking about all the signs you might want to spell out. Alfie. Harry. Happy Birthday. Merry Christmas. Welcome Home. Congratulations. The letters just kept stacking up in my head, each one pulling double or triple duty across different occasions and different people. An A that belongs to Alfie also belongs to Happy Birthday. An H that spells Harry also spells Happy. These letters aren’t for one person - they’re for whoever needs them.

That’s the thing I keep coming back to. You stitch them once, and you use them forever. They live in a basket. You pull them out, rearrange them, hang them up. When your family grows, you add more letters. When occasions change, the message changes. Nobody owns any single letter. They belong to everyone.

I know heirloom is a word that gets thrown around a lot in needlepoint, but I genuinely mean it here. This is the kind of project where the making is only the beginning.

So I started with Alfie, because he’s the eldest so as always gets to be first, but also the guinea pig. He’s used to it.

I knew the L and I would be fine. But the letter A - with a hole in it. I spend about two months procrastinating not sure if I should try to keep the inside of the A open or not. Self-finishing a letter with a hole in the middle - the counter inside the A - is genuinely fiddly, and I was bracing myself for disaster. But it worked. It’s not perfect of course, but overall it was success. A win. I’ll take it.

Then came the F.

The F has two horizontal bars extending out from the vertical, and the gap between them is - I’m going to say this diplomatically - not generous. It’s worth noting that when I was designing these, I was much earlier in my self finishing journey and the idea that I would finish these in this way seemed impossible to me so I didn’t consider it.

So by the time I’d stitched two rows either side of the arms of the letter F, there was basically nothing left to cut through. I had the scissors in my hand. I was committed. And then I stopped and thought: if I cut this, I am going to ruin this entire letter, and that would be a very bad Tuesday.

So I did cut it, and the edges of the canvas were sticking out - there was no way near enough canvas for a proper edge. But I made it work, and sort of shoved the cording onto the spiky bits on the canvas and seriously you can’t even tell. But I won’t be doing that again, because besides the lack of excess mesh, its just such a small space its a pain to stitch it altogether, and by the time the cording is in, they are touching anyway so defeats the whole purpose.

Next time (when I do the letter E which will work the same) I am going to leave the area in between the arms of the letter, and just stitch the cording over it. It will give the same effect and be easy easier, I am sure of it.

Three ways to stitch this, all of them valid

I’ve done this alphabet every way you can do it: from the chart unpainted, painted by me, and on the printed canvas from Happy Stitch.

From the chart is how I’ve done most of it, and I’ll be honest - it requires concentration. It’s a two-colour-plus-white design, which sounds simple, but it’s easy to lose your place. I wouldn’t start this one on a Friday night after a glass of wine. I’d give it a fresh, quiet morning. It’s totally doable, it’s just one that rewards your full attention rather than your half-attention.

Painting it yourself is satisfying but also where most of the colour mistakes happen - more on that in a second.

The printed canvas from Happy Stitch is the easiest entry point, and the one I’d recommend if you want to do multiple letters without thinking too hard. Print on demand also means any letter is always in stock, which matters when you’re mid-project and suddenly need a second R.

Colour choices: the wins, and the Y

This alphabet has three tones: a dark, a mid, and a white (or near-white if you prefer). The metallic effect entirely depends on those three sitting at the right distance from each other in terms of lightness and darkness. When it works, the letter looks dimensional and slightly shimmery. When it doesn’t work, it looks muddy.

I have a muddy letter. It’s the Y. You can see it in the photos, and I’m showing you on purpose.

I knew when I was choosing the threads that the colours were fairly similar - all three sitting in roughly the same mid-tone range - but I didn’t think it would be that bad. I was wrong. It looks flat. The eye just can’t find anywhere to land. It’ll get redone eventually, but for now it lives in the pile as a cautionary tale.

The H, on the other hand, is one of my favourites. Instead of using a pure white for the lightest tone, I used a very pale shade of purple - almost white but not quite. It makes the letter feel warm and coherent, like all three colours actually belong to each other rather than just coexisting.

That’s the trick, I think: your three colours should feel like they’re from the same family. A pink letter wants a dark rose, a mid pink, and a pale blush - not a dark rose, a mid pink, and a cold white. The near-white can be tinted. It should be tinted. It makes the whole thing feel considered rather than assembled.

On finishing

White border on every letter, regardless of what’s inside. I made this decision early and I’m sticking to it - when everything is hanging together as a garland, the consistency matters more than the perfect colour match per letter.

Cording is one strand of white twisted with one strand of the main colour. Simple, repeatable, looks deliberate. This is helping it all come together despite the fact that most of the letters I have tested out some kind of different approach.

One tip I’ll offer: every time I cut a piece of matte board to shape for a letter, I cut a third one and put it in my stash. Because I already know I’m going to need duplicates - two L’s for Alfie, two R’s for Harry - and having a pre-cut template ready when that moment comes is genuinely useful.

This is part one. The E is waiting. Harry is waiting. Happy Birthday is waiting.

I’m not finished, and I’m not pretending to be. Come back for part two.

The full Metallic Alphabet chart bundle - all 26 letters, all numbers, and a set of symbols - is: here

And if you’d prefer a canvas, the alphabet is now available print-on-demand at Happy Stitch alongside Palm Sunday, Noah’s Ark, and the Silly Goose collection: here

It’s been a while since I last updated you on my needlepoint WIPS and finishes, so here’s a full update! Overall I’ve been doing a lot of what I call ‘impatient stitching’ where I start a project with whatever threads I have, and then have to wait to get more, and some are easier than others to come by. So there’s a lot of ‘almost finished’ but this will be good for a batch completion and finishing session sometime soon.

There is also a video update of some of my WIPS on YouTube here.

I couldn’t resist buying

Before we get into what I’ve been stitching, let me tell you about some recent purchases I’ve made (but I’m not allowed to start until I finish some of my others!!)

Disco Strawberry

link here

This is probably the first needlepoint design I saw and thought - I need an update when that comes in stock. and I’ve been waiting for while. I think I might have missed out on a restock at some point, but finally my time has come, and I have bought it. I can’t wait to start stitching it.

Tony's Chocolonely

link here

Another one I desperately wanted to stitch, everyone’s favourite chocolate! I really love food needlepoint designs so can’t wait to add this to the collection.

Ndlpnt pouch

link here

I like the simplicity of this design, but I didn’t realise this was going to be on 13 mesh, and I’m not sure if I should think about turning it into something other than an ornament? like maybe a passport cover or something? or is that a bit weird?

Magnetic Ort Bowl

link here

It’s surprisingly hard to get a magnetic bowl like this, and this one just simply works. Especially with young kids I like knowing that the needles are a bit more secure.

Finishes

Ok so let’s get into some recent finishes!!

Mini Chilli

link here

Finished this into a bag charm, and the fabric on the backing is made from a vintage tie, it is a chilli design, it looks so good! You can see it the video of it here.

Red solo cup

canvas here, chart here

I love this little one for the 4th of July, you can get this as a chart and it’s also coming soon as canvas, you can join the notification list here.

Kelly running in traffic

link here

If you are a watcher of vintage real housewives, you will know this moment and get a giggle.

Key Fobs

I did a little experiment on these keyfobs, you can watch the Youtube video here. The charts are a download from penny linn, you can get them here.

P Keyfob

Off the back of the keyfob project, I designed my own P keyfob to use with this specific hardware. It turned out great!

WIPS

Bookshop

canvas notification here

chart here

There’s only a handful of stitches to go on this, and I can’t wait to finish it. I’ve been working on getting this and a few of my other favourite village houses available on canvas, and I’ve put placeholder listings on my site so that you can signup for restock notifications to be notified as soon as they are available to purchase (hopefully within the next month, maybe less!!!)

Aesop Handwash

link to chart

This is a new design of mine, I’m really interested in trying to capture tricky effects like glass and reflections, so this was a challenge, I’m happy with how it’s turning out though!

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Hugo spritz from Morgan Julia Designs

link here

Bike, Frances Abel Designs

link here

I’m really finding myself loving 13 mesh projects right now, so absolutely loved this one. Finishing it is going to be tricky, but worth it I think.

Goldfish in a bag

link here

I’m trying to think of a creative way to finish this one, I want the cording to sort of wrap around the finished piece so make it look like it’s wrapped around the bag, have to do some thinking.

Bow, The Collection

link here

I love this one and am hoping (fingers crossed) since it’s such an easy shape, that it just might be my best ever finish, let’s wait and see.

That’s all for now, see you next week!

I get asked this question all the time. And I completely understand why - invisible thread is genuinely hard to work with at first. It’s fine, it’s slippery, it can feel almost impossible to see (especially under certain lighting), and there is absolutely a period at the beginning where you’re squinting and swearing and wondering why you’re doing this to yourself.

So yes. The glue question makes total sense.

And here’s the thing I want to say right upfront: you are absolutely allowed to use glue. There is no needlepoint police and nobody is coming to your house. If you want to try it, try it! Plenty of people do, and plenty of people get really good at it. Just like anything else in finishing, there’s a learning curve - and the people who push through that curve will end up with beautiful results.

With that said, I just personally don’t use it. And it’s not because I think it’s wrong. It’s mostly because I’m terrified of it. Let me explain.

The thing about glue is that it’s very hard to undo.

With invisible thread, if I make a mistake - and I make plenty - I can unpick it. I can start again. The canvas is still fine. The whole thing is recoverable.

Glue does not offer you that same grace. If you’ve stuck something down and then realise it’s in the wrong position, or the two pieces aren’t lined up the way you wanted, you’re in a really tricky situation. And depending on what type of glue you use, you can genuinely damage the canvas trying to get it off. That, for me, is reason enough to keep a safe distance.

There’s also the yellowing issue.

Some adhesives - particularly certain craft glues - can yellow over time. This might not be a dealbreaker for everyone (if you’re making an ornament that lives in a box for eleven months of the year, maybe you care less), but if you’ve spent hours stitching something beautiful and want it to last, it’s at least worth knowing. Worth checking what type of glue you’re using and whether it’s archival-safe (if this matters to you).

And then there’s the chaos of the finishing process itself.

If you’ve ever finished a needlepoint ornament, you’ll know that it involves approximately forty-seven clips and pins at any given moment (okay, a slight exaggeration, but not really). The process is quite involved - you’re holding things in place, adjusting, clipping, repositioning.

With glue in the mix, there is a real risk of accidentally bonding one of your clips, or your fingers, or the wrong side of the fabric, and then you have a whole different problem. These clips are my favourite for finishing and I use a lot of them - something to remember is if you are batch finishing, you need a LOT of clips. I think I use at least 20 per ornament, maybe more depending on the size.

There’s also the risk of glue seeping through to the front of your needlepoint piece, especially around the edges. Even a tiny amount of visible adhesive can really affect the finished look - it’s the kind of thing that’s very hard to fix after the fact.

So… should you try it?

If you want to, genuinely, yes. Especially if:

• The invisible thread is really not working for you (eyesight, dexterity, patience - all valid)

• You’re making something that’s not precious to you, so the stakes feel low

• You’re curious and you like experimenting

My suggestion would be to start on something small and low-stakes. Test it. Give yourself time to get used to it. Don’t write it off after the first attempt.

Here’s what I’ll say about invisible thread, though.

I know it has a reputation for being awful. And I won’t lie to you - at the start, it is frustrating. But I’ve genuinely come to love it. The stitching part - sewing the two cookies together - is actually my favourite part of the whole process now. I find it really meditative. Very slow, very quiet, very satisfying.

The key things that helped me were: going really slowly, using a milliners needle (which is thinner than a regular needle and much easier to work with for this), and this particular invisible thread, which I really rate. It’s technically marketed for beading and jewellery but it works perfectly for finishing and it’s strong enough that I can pull it fairly tight without worrying about it snapping.

If you’ve tried invisible thread and hated it, I’d gently encourage you to try again - maybe with different materials, maybe with lower expectations, maybe just going slower than you think you need to. It might surprise you.

Whatever method you choose, the goal is the same: a finish you’re proud of. And there are genuinely multiple ways to get there.

See you next week! 💕

I’m back again with some more needlepoint designers I’m lovingn right now. I love finding new designs and seeing the unique style that people ahve for their designs. I can’t wait to share with you what I have found!

The Sassy Stitcher

link to store

I love the range of designs here, all feeling fun but also not too complicated to stitch. I love the idea ofthe ghost with sunglasses hanging on the christmas tree (but also the sloth too!!)

Olivia Grace

link to store

There’s so many designs I want here. The mac and cheese, the retro computers (I think I’d have to get the SIMS one!) and then the CD of course (to compliment the retro computer which I used to burn CDs on IYKYK).

Skooter Designs

link to store

This designer is really a bit of a unique one, there is a distinct style of elevated luxury and really intridcate detailed designs. It really isn’t like any other designer I’ve come across. I honestly can’t wait to see what this designer does next.

I hope you enjoyed these, and as always I’d love to hear of any designers you have found! Happy stitching x

Before we get into it - in case you missed it, I want to let you know I have a new canvas dropping Thursday 7th of May 9am EST. If you like the Palm Sunday design, you will LOVE this. It’s Noah’s Ark, an incredibly detailed scene with lots and lots of animals. This took me SO long to design so I really hope you enjoy it. There is also the nativity canvas which has never been available before, plus a small Palm Sunday restock. Make sure you are following @goldenhourneedlepoint on instagram to be the first to be notified when it’s live.

So let’s get into this post!

Penny Linn Cane Keyfob (link here) - this is my summertime stitch for a very specific reason - it doesn’t need a huge amount of margin of canvas for finishing, so it’s a nice small size for in hand stitching (on the plane in particular!). I’ve already painted it in green and pink. I have found an interesting hardware option on Amazon (link here), I am going to test it out and will report back if it works.

By the way, if you want to follow and chart and are looking for mesh, there is some 18 count mesh in stock here.

Evelyn Henson Tennis Ball Drink (link here) - I just love a quirky ridiculous design and this is exactly that.

US Solo Cup - link to chart. This is my own current WIP - still waiting on the final colour for this stitch but I’m already really happy with how it is turning out. It’s a cute little US themed solo cup and it was very simple to paint.

Wheelhaus Needlepoint Sandcastle Tote - link here

Initial K Studio Tennis Balls - link here

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Mini Chilli - get the chart here

I designed this as a fun little bag charm, and I just love the colours that I used. It’s simple, I stitched it in about an hour. I also made the cording with my new cording maker, I got the cheap one from Amazon and despite feeling VERY cheap, it does the job! You can get the cording maker I got here

Pinpoint classic pool float - link here

Cotswold Co - watermelon canvas - link here

I really like this beach chair chart: link here

4th July Grumpy Frog - link here

Chupa Chups - link here

Morgan Julia Designs - Ginger Jar Champagne Bucket link here

Lobster patch - this is a really small design and so could be really great for a beginner, or even as a gift! link here

I have so many more that I am currently looking at, should I do part 2 perhaps?

They are available as charts and you can get a discount using the code SUBSTACK

Flower Market Bear

I always get asked for some more feminine bears, so this one is a summertime vibe of a flower market bear with freshly cut hydrangeas. I think there’s an opportunity to do an interesting stitch on the basket, and french knots for the hydrangeas.

Get the chart here

Greek Village House

As I expand the christmas village, I’m thinking about places that inspire me, and of course Greece comes to mind. I love Greece so much so I just had to make a fun greek villa christmas house complete with donkey and evil eye above the front door.

Get the chart here

Wimbledon Ornament

I love the idea of stitching things and events that are significant, so I had to do everyone’s favourite British tournament, complete with strawberries (so iconic).

get the chart here

Mistletoe Manor

Another addition to the Knotting Hill Christmas village, a grand manor house, with a cat sillhouette in the window 👀

get the chart here

Kelly in Traffic

Real Housewives of New York fans will immediately recognise this - Kelly Bensimon running in traffic. It lives rent free in my head so now it has it’s rightful place stitched forever as well. Get the chart here

Dorinda “I Made it nice”

Another iconic Real Housewives of New York moment, where Dorinda yelled at everyone. get the chart here

Andy in the Clouds

This one you might have seen on instagram, I have been trying to design this for quite some time. It’s Andy Cohen, in the clouds, a scene from the video clip of the Lady Gaga song GUY. Pretty niche, I know, but also funny. Get the chart here

Summertime Solo Cup

I just wanted something that was just a simple summertime stitch, I love how it turned out and love the simplicity of this design. get the chart here

Snoo

An iconic piece of baby gear, if you had one, you know. This is the fastest stitch I’ve ever done, it’s a really small and simple design, I stitched it in one episode of a tv show. Get the chart here

USA Sailboat

Thinking more about summertime/4th July vibes, I wanted to create something more nautical. I like this design to commemorate a boat trip, or just for someone who loves sailing! get the chart here

Marshmallows

I liked this design so much I made it in three different colours. I stitched the two colour one because I just think it looks so delicious and realistic. I’m really happy with how it turned out. Get the chart here

Cowgirl Goose

Adding to this collection of silly goose designs, the goose is dressed for a cowgirl festival and I love how fun and pink this design is. get the chart here

Slushie

Another summertime moment, a delicious looking pink slushie. Irresistible, and a simple stitch. get the chart here

2026 ornament

I like to create a few designs each year which commemorate the year, becauase I just think that as you collect each year, it becomes more and more special. So here’s my latest 2026 one, as you can see I’m loving very glossy looking designs right now. get the chart here.

That’s it for now, I hope you like my latest creations! Don’t forget to use code SUBSTACK for a discount 💕

See you next week