Over the next several weeks, I’ll be reviewing embroidery kits for you, from designers around the globe who sell their own kits through their own small embroidery businesses.

If you’ve been hanging around here on Needle ‘n Thread for a bit, you might remember that back in April, I published a very short starter list of places where you can order quality embroidery kits directly from designers. I’ll be adding to that list in the near future.

Ordering kits directly from designers ensures that you get a good quality kit directly from the person who made it, who designed the project, worked it from the ground up, and knows all about it.

These types of kits are a great way to learn a technique well, and they often come with a good support system. If you are having trouble with your kit, you can often email the designer directly and get good tips that will see you through the project successfully.

Today, I’m going to show you, up close and personal, what you get in a kit from The Crewel Work Company, Phillipa Turnbull’s business in the UK that specializes in historically accurate crewel embroidery designs and materials.

The kit I’m reviewing here is the Mellerstain Firescreen kit. It’s lovely, and I can’t wait to get started on it!

I mentioned at some point last week that I’ll be doing some organizing and cleaning up in my workroom over the next couple weeks.

Just mentioning “organizing the workroom” sparked a lot of interest. You asked if I’d share before and after pictures, if I’d share tips on organizing and so forth.

Organizing can be a real bear! And I’m probably the last one in the world to offer tips on how to do it efficiently, on what storage solutions to use and all that kind of stuff. Because right now, I’m completely disorganized.

My Biggest Problem right now is a Book Problem.

Here’s a question for you: Can you have Too Many Embroidery Books?

My answer: a resounding YES.

To give you a better understanding of my Embroidery Book Problem, let’s take a little peek in my book cabinet:

Continuing with this new series of monograms for hand embroidery here on Needle ‘n Thread, here’s the next four letters of the floral script alphabet I started sharing last week.

One thing I especially love about this particular alphabet is that it offers so many possibilities for interpretation in stitches, and as I add the letters to Needle ‘n Thread, I’ll share some stitching ideas with you.

Since many of you write now and then asking about class sale prices for the hand embroidery classes available on Craftsy, I thought I better give you a Big Heads Up about this weekend’s class sale!

It’s a good one, and if you’ve been contemplating signing up, now’s a good time to do it!

Some of the questions showing up in my inbox lately have to do with Coloris, DMC’s new multi-colored stranded cotton.

I’m working on a little Coloris project as we speak – I’ll share that with you in upcoming weeks. I always figure you can get a better idea of a thread and what it does by actually stitching with it, rather than just handling it and staring at it. And to that end, I’ve been playing about with it! (Hey, any excuse to play with thread!)

In the meantime, I’ll answer a couple questions about the thread that may help you decide if you want to add this new collection of twenty-four colors to your stitchy stuff.

Let me put it this way – if you have a fun streak when it comes to embroidery, I’m pretty sure you’re going to want to add it to your stash!

Here on Needle ‘n Thread, you’ll find a whole slew of free hand embroidery patterns for your own personal use.

Today, I’m going to start a series featuring these very pretty floral monograms that I’ve cleaned up into vector line drawings that you can enlarge or reduce, print, and use for your own hand embroidery projects.

Visiting museums, taking road trips, exploring history… these are things I love doing, and usually, when I do get the opportunity to do them, I’m always on the lookout for embroidery along the way. I can’t help it – it’s a compulsion and an obsession!

Last month, a very dear friend came to visit, whom I hadn’t seen in years. One day, she suggested a short road trip. Now, I’m nuts for road trips, but I haven’t gone on even a short one in a couple years. So I leapt at the opportunity, and one morning, early, we headed out across the green hills of Northeast and North Central Kansas (yes, by the way, we have hills in Kansas!), to a town called Concordia.

Concordia is home to a small museum with a huge story. While the museum is, in a way, a simple affair, it tells one of the most compelling (and little-known) stories of America history – the story of the Orphan Train Movement. The Orphan Train Complex houses a research center and a museum dedicated to the riders of the Orphan Trains in the US from the mid-1800’s through the early 1900’s. During a time frame of about 75 years, over 250,000 children – orphaned, abandoned and foundlings – were “deported” (primarily from NYC) on trains across the United States and Canada to be placed in new homes.