Our new embroidery collaboration with Dee Hardwicke!

It's finally time to release our wonderful collaboration with Dee Hardwicke into the world!  All of the items are available to pre-order now so we can get everything ordered and ready for delivery early September.

Our story begins a few years back when Dee fell in love with Beyond Measure, having been given some exquisite Japanese embroidery needles and glass-headed pins which her husband selected from the site for her birthday. A chance meeting between us at The Knitting & Stitching Show
was all it took to confirm that Dee and I share a creative vision and
a passion for making and beautiful things!

Dee finds endless inspiration in the ever-changing beauty of Britain's countryside and gardens. Working in the traditions of the Arts and Crafts movement, she uses a wide variety of materials – from thread to paints, paper and clay – to create designs for products which add joy and colour to everyday life. Dee has always been equally happy with paintbrushes or an embroidery needle in hand, and she thinks of embroidery as being like "painting in thread", with each stitch on the cloth acting like a brushstroke of colour.

When Dee approached me about collaborating on her idea for gorgeous Watercolour Sampler Cloths based on her original botanical artworks, I was incredibly flattered and excited!

Says Dee "I wanted to design Watercolour Sampler Cloths that
would open up a world of creativity, whether you're new to embroidery or it's something you've been passionate about for years, so working with Grace to create these unique cloths seemed like the ideal opportunity for a really special collaboration."

Beautiful enough to frame just as they are, you can add your personality to these Watercolour Sampler Cloths by embroidering as much or as little of the delicate botanical designs – which range from Mimosa to Foxglove, Myrtle, Achillea and Seedhead – as you like. Whether you decide to highlight a selection of petals and stems to create an eye-catching sense of texture, or you embroider the entire design (perhaps even adding some details of your own), the result will be a unique expression of your creativity. The possibilities are endless!

I'm so delighted to be working with Dee, who has always been so supportive of my business.  Her world is so wonderfully creative and colourful, and I've loved combining different embroidery stitches with Dee's delicate watercolour designs - I know you will too!

Over the coming months, we'll be sharing our stitching journey as we embroider the cloths using different techniques and show you a variety of ways you can present and use the designs.  I'll also be focusing on some of the different threads I have used and putting together some more colour packs for you. The cloths work well with our Daruma threads, and Sajou wool or cotton flosses too.

But to start you off we have created some special Paint Box Thread Twists, one for each design, and also some luxury boxed sets that contain all the cloths and all the threads, needles and a hoop to get you started.

We are so excited about what you will create!  Please share your makes from September with the #watercoloursamplercloths hashtag - we can't wait to see your interpretations and will be doing some exciting giveaways too!

You can pre-order the cloths, threads and kits here - happy stitching!

Grace x