May 12

Did you miss us?

Welcome to our now bi-monthly newsletter. I hope you didn't miss us too much last month, we were very busy at Stitch & Craft and Sewing for Pleasure and it's a good job we didn't try and squeeze in a newsletter as well. The shows were packed - very busy and full of enthusiastic stitchers and crafters of all sorts. Sewing for Pleasure is part of a group of shows, all hosted at the NEC at the same time, and customers can vists all of the shows with the one ticket so it was a crafting bonanza for all attending. I also had a bit of a look round during one of our quieter moments (tip - visit on Sunday, it's always a bit quieter) and as you can see from my photos, I had a fun half an hour visiting some of our fellow exhibitors.

As enjoyable as the shows are, it's always nice to get back home and do a bit of spring cleaning and sorting out. We've been sorting out our aida fabric stock and as a result we've got a special offer on fabric offcuts, which you can read about below. We're also featuring some of our most popular ideas for Father's Day, including one kit that features in the current issue of World of Cross Stitching magazine. So ignore the April showers and the spring cleaning, settle down and read on.
Dennis Fire Truck Cross Stitch Kit
Happy Father's Day, any Fireman Dads!

Newsletter Readers' Corner

At our recent round of shows, we met a number of newsletter readers and facebook fans. So hi to Sheena Perkins and Maggie Lock, who both received free gifts for mentioning the newsletter at our stand. Julie Howlett attended the Olympia show and received her gift. She told me she thought the show had more cross stitch than ever before and was well laid out, so we're really glad you enjoyed it Julie. So hi and thanks to all of our existing customers who came to say hello, apologies for not getting more names to mention but busy times stopped me from writing down more names!

Now that we've finished the shows, we'd really appreciate some pictures of your completed Stitchtastic designs to feature in some of our upcoming newsletters. Please send them to sarah@stitchtastic.com.



Me and Crafty Bob 
Me and Crafty Bob at Sewing for Pleasure 2012 - don't ask!

Happy Father's Day

To all of you Dads out there who are stitchers yourself, well done! We certainly see more and more male stitchers as time goes on, but ladies still make up the majority of our readers. However, a large number of those lady stitchers are keen to stitch something for their Dad, or husband, brother, uncle, son, grandad....the list goes on. We have a huge range of designs that should appeal to the men in your life, and if you start stitching soon you'll easily finish in time for Father's Day.
So, what is Dad a fan of......how about trains? We have 2 fantastic train stitches available, showing the old and new sides of the rails. How about our Flying Scotsman? The caricature feel makes the stitching jump off the aida and you can certainly feel the heat from all that steam!
Or how about a more modern approach with our Virgin Intercity design? This kit was featured in this month's World of Cross Stitching magazine and is quite an easy stitch, with only a little backstitch for the logo. You'd easily get this done in time for Father's Day, which in the UK and USA is the thrid Sunday in June, June 17th this year. Although if you're reading from Germany, Spain, Australia or Norway (I picked those as I know some of our regular customers come from these countries), your Father's Day is on a different date so have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father's_Day for more details.

So, Dad isn't a train fan. What else could you stitch for him? Well, if he's always wanted a sports car, why not tease him by presenting him with one - in stitches? One of our most popular sporty designs is the MGB Roadster design. Measuring just 13 by 5 and a half inches (32.8cm by 13.8cm), you'd have no problem completing this by June. It comes in a variety of colours, with purple being my favourite. Have a look at http://www.stitchtastic.com/product/mgb-roadster-cross-stitch-kit.aspx for more details.

Or is Dad a motorbike fan? Find out what his favourite / first bike was and see if we have it in our range of several hundred. If he's just a general bike fan, why not stitch him a well-liked brand bike such as a Honda or a Harley Davidson? The Honda VFR 400 NC30 is one of our best sellers, or you could go for a Harley Davidson Ultra Glide - a real classic. He'll certainly love the thought and it will be a completely unique present, specifically for him.

We've got lots of other great Father's Day ideas - I've not had time to mention our selection of aircraft and emergency vehicles, or maybe Dad drives a cement mixer or a Formula 1 car? Whatever you decide to do for Father's Day, make sure you see or talk to him and appreciate him. Dads are very special.


Flying Scotsman Cross Stitch Kit 
The Flying Scotsman - a classic.

Virgin Intercity Cross Stitch Kit 
All aboard!

MGB Roadster Cross Stitch Kit 
The MGB Roadster Cross Stitch - one of the most popular sports car stitches we sell.

Honda VFR 400 NC30 Cross Stitch Kit 
The Honda VFR 400 NC30 - a very popular motorbike.

Harley Davidson Ultra Glide Anniversary Cross Stitch Kit 
We have over 50 Harley Davidson designs, this Ultra Glide is the most popular.

Fabric Sale

I'm sure I've told you before about our office space. Patrick works in there, surrounded by cones of thread (a couple of thousand of them) and metres of fabric. Every so often, we have a spring clean (sometimes even in the Spring!) and this year we've decided to spring clean our fabric supplies.

When we make kits, we supply a certain amount of fabric with them, dependent on the size of the design. This means we are often left with fabric offcuts that don't fit any of our designs, but can be perfect for those projects you're doing where you need a different sized piece of aida. So we've decided to have a bit of a sale on our aida offcuts. We're selling a 'lucky dip' if you like, a mixed pack of aida offcut pieces of various sizes for just £5, plus £1.50 shipping. So, for £6.50 all in, you could have enough aida to stitch all of your Christmas cards for 2012 (sorry, I know I'm not allowed to mention Christmas until at least September, but this is a one off) or perhaps for that design you saw in a magazine and you've found all the threads for in your stash, but you don't want to buy a great big piece of aida and waste lots of it.

The pieces range in size, a significant number of them will be aida strips of various widths but measuring at least 8" (20cm) high. You can see by the picture that colours will vary but will come from our stock of sky blue, ice blue, ivory and white. The majority will be 14 count. If you'd like to snap up a bargain, have a look at http://www.stitchtastic.com/product/fabric-offcuts-5-pack.aspx .
Aida Offcuts- 5 pack 
Our aida offcuts pack is a bargain at £5!

Next Time

Goodness me, our next newsletter will be released at the beginning of July! Hopefully by then the rain will have stopped(!) and we'll talk about summer stitching in the sunshine.

See you then!
Next Time

Questions or comments? E-mail me at sarah@stitchtastic.com or call +44 (0) 114 2353958

Until next time
Sarah
Designer


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