To My Dear Friends, Needle and Thread
How My Life Has Changed Through Slow Stitching
I have been stitching now for 24 years meaning that nearly half my life has been spent with my good friends Needle and Thread. Like many I came to stitching through my Mum, an incredibly talented multi crafter, proficient in knitting, crochet, embroidery, cross stitch, sewing and quilting. Under her guidance I first met Needle and Thread through cross stitch and long stitch when I was at school. The first piece I did was a long stitch of two horses which my Mum then got framed for me. I remember being very proud to have a piece I had stitched hanging up on my bedroom wall. After that I tried cross stitch, we got on ok, but it never really stuck and I didn’t finish any of the pieces I started. During Highschool my relationship with Needle and Thread faulted under the pressure and torment of teen years and we weren’t going to come together again until my late teens to early twenties.
After leaving school I began a diploma of Interior Design. Fresh out of High School I was keen to join the ‘Grown Ups’ world, and despite my now homebody tendencies, I had dreams of moving to the city or moving to London and making a name for myself in design. My Mum had started making quilts and on weekends we would go out as a family and visit patchwork shops so Mum could bolster her growing stash with new fabrics. It was very difficult to not get inspired by the pretty prints and I found myself drawn to 1930’s reproduction fabrics and vintage florals. No surprise really given that the styles of design and decorating I was drawn to were retro/vintage and shabby chic.
And so, I started collecting my own fabric stash, soon learning how addictive this could be and with my Mum’s help, started designing and making my first quilt. At last, Needle and Thread had found me again and this time they were intent on making sure I didn’t ever put them down again.
Soon I learnt that buying fabric, cutting it up and stitching it back together was wonderfully fulfilling, getting to make something with my own two hands and then proudly throwing it over my bed to snuggle and sleep under. My first quilt was a weird queen bed size, made from calico panels that had blanket stitch appliqued circles in 1930’s prints. I say weird because it is the length of a queen bed, but the width of a double bed. Each panel was a colour of the rainbow and between the panels were border strips. The back was pieced from squares of floral, shabby chic style prints and the whole thing was hand quilted in a 1” and 2″ cross hatch pattern…no small feat for a beginner quilter.
I also discovered on completing my first quilt that you end up with a lot of scraps, sometimes in odd shapes, especially when cutting out circles. I was about to learn though just how useful these scraps would become.
One weekend we all went to a local quilt show. While walking up and down the rows of quilts I found one that wasn’t hanging up but rather draped over a small table, unfinished. It was made from hundreds of different fabrics, all cut up into hexagons and stitched together. I was instantly drawn to it. I couldn’t fathom how someone had sewn these odd shapes together on the sewing machine, all I had ever really seen at that point were applique quilts or simple blocks made from squares and triangles.
I called my Mum over and asked her what it was, it’s English Paper Piecing she replied and then explained that you use a paper template, wrapping the fabric around the paper and then stitching it all together. Afterwards the papers are removed, and it’s quilted and bound like any other quilt. My mind was blown! Someone had sat down, cut hundreds of fabric hexies, basted them to papers and then meticulously hand stitched them all together? That’s crazy! But despite that, I wanted to try it myself.
My Mum had herself started a 1” scrappy hexagon quilt which had gone completely un-noticed by me, so when we got home, she pulled it out and showed me how she was making it. She gave me some paper templates, and I started cutting and basting my own using the scraps of fabric from my first quilt. Back then we used to thread baste through the paper templates and Mum showed me how to whip stitch them together with regular sewing cotton thread. I didn’t realise then, nor did my Mum, but Needle and Thread knew they had me hook, line and sinker, and from that day on I would be a stitcher.
As my 1” hexie quilt grew, so did my love for English Paper Piecing. Now when we went to quilt shows I would seek out the EPP quilts and it would always be one of them that I put down for my viewer’s choice, and usually one with hexies. My love affair with hexies had been ignited, and while now I love to stitch with lots of different shapes, they will always be my first love, and old friend who will always be there for me when I need them.
Not long after discovering EPP I came across a mini quilt at the Sydney Quilt and Craft Fair of an appliqued tree of life that featured tiny hexie flowers. Once again, I was instantly drawn to them and couldn’t believe that someone had hand stitched them together. Of course, I had to try them for myself and finally found a packet of ¼” hexies at a local quilt shop. I began making tiny hexie flowers, eventually stitching them together into a mini quilt I named Garden of Patience. If English Paper Piecing, and Needle and Thread hadn’t had their steely grips on me before, then they certainly did now. I began designing and making all sorts of things with these tiny hexies, ¼, 3/8” and ½”, creating designs I framed in embroidery hoops, such as my popular hexie hearts.
When I think back to those years of discovery, I could never have known that EPP, stitching, and my good friends Needle and Thread would take me on the journey to where I am today. What started out as a hobby has manifested itself into a business that I now work on full time. Entrepreneurship would find me through the ‘handmade’ movement which I got swept up in around 2014 when I opened my first Etsy shop Miss Leela Handmade. Here I made and sold my mini EPP wall hoops and eventually would start to sell packets of EPP templates in the tiny sizes I liked to use. I started attending live Etsy market events and my drive to own and run my own business continued to grow.
A few years later that drive would lead me to establishing and opening my brand-new online shop The Makers Stash in 2019, seven years ago this week (February 10th). I started with a few ranges of paper templates, glue pens, needles and thread and launched my first pattern collection Time for Tea. I attended my first quilt show as a stall holder at The Camden Quilters show and started to build a brand-new community on Instagram.
Today my business is about three times the size of when I started. I have released a total of twenty patterns, expanded my range of paper templates, added a beautiful selection of threads and fabric to my shop, released my Guide to English Paper Piecing, taught work shops and given talks and demonstrations, travelled with my shop to many craft and quilt shows, had two patterns published in Homespun magazine, worked with other incredible designers on pattern bundles, launched a YouTube channel and next year I will be hosting a Cruise to the South Pacific Islands with Travelrite Tours!
So, while stitching and my relationship with Needle and Thread has allowed me to create my own business and provide me with the opportunity to work for myself, at my own hours, it has given me so much more.
Through stitching I have found my people, a community of like-minded creatives who enjoy the things that I enjoy, who understand that my fabric stash is my most prized possession, who find it exciting when you learn a new-to-you embroidery stitch that you’ve never tried before. Who get excited by all the wonderfully creative projects and people out there. Who are so giving of their time, encouragement and knowledge.
I have connected and become good friends with people in other states of Australia and countries from around the world. We are bound together in our love of collecting, curating, stitching and our friends Needle and Thread. Our lives are woven together, and we are connected to the past, to the stitchers before us and we will pass the baton to the stitchers who come after us. Slow Stitching has given me a kind of connection that I have not seen or experienced anywhere else in life.
Needle and Thread, EPP and Slow Stitching have been there for me during my darkest days and happiest moments. They have seen me through the trials of life, holding my hand and helping me to keep my feet on the ground and my head above the water. They hold my emotions in their firm embrace; they help validate my feelings. They nourish my soul and mind in ways that food and nutrients never can. They are always there when I need them, when I need to relax, de-stress, or calm my anxiety. They comfort and support me as a Mum, Wife, Daughter and Friend with no judgement. They are my therapy and meditation, helping me to be calm and allowing me to rest.
Through stitch I share my imagination and creativity. Needle and Thread with their accomplice Fabric are how I express myself, how I create beauty in this world. Their friendship brings me joy; it keeps my heart light and my soul happy. In all honesty I would be lost without them.
Looking back, I’m sure my Mum never could have imagined that when she showed me how to do EPP all those years ago that it would be the one craft she taught me that would stick. I’m sure she never would have thought that I’d turn this hobby into a business that I now work on full time. I feel so blessed to have this special connection with my Mum, to be able to share my passion for stitching with her. We have such wonderful times together, visiting quilt shops and shows, sharing what we have discovered on Instagram or YouTube, talking through ideas and stitching in quiet companionship together.
So, thank you Needle and Thread. You are the very best kind of friend and I’m so thankful to have met you and invited you into my life. I can’t wait to see what we create and where we will go next.
Yours’s Truly,
Miss Leela xxx
P.S Dearest needle, do you think you could stab my finger a little less? You are rather pointy and sharp. Love you.
Miss Leela’s Guide to English Paper Piecing
$29.95
Miss Leela’s Guide to English Paper Piecing is a digital PDF download book that you can save to your files and refer to time again.
71 in stock
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