If you haven’t heard, there is an exciting event happening in a week and half (March 6 – 8) – Needlework Expo! This is a virtual wholesale-only market experience, primarily focused on the cross stitch industry. It is like Nashville Needlework Market – which typically takes place at the beginning of March, in person, in Nashville, TN. (Thanks, pandemic, for the cancellation here in 2021.) Knowing that there was a good chance that Nashville might not happen this year (which came to pass), Janis of Noteworthy Needle created this new and exciting experience for the industry. I wrote more about it here.
Just to be clear, the Needlework Expo is NOT a retail shopping opportunity. It is wholesale for stores to interact directly with designers, to purchase directly from them. As many designers usually have some fantastic patterns that come out at the beginning of March (typically for Nashville), there are some AMAZING designs that are being revealed at this time. A great place to see this is to find and follow Needlework_Expo on Instagram. Many designers have been doing “sneak peeks” for the past few weeks and full reveals are now happening in earnest.
I will be participating in Needlework Expo and today I want to start sharing with you my new patterns!
First up is this – Renaissance Band Sampler.
The bands on this are inspired by bands found in a 16th century pattern book. While there is no definite way to say how those designs were used centuries ago (edgings on clothing? on table linen?), such patterns always appeal to my eye. I thought that a band sampler of them would be perfect. I stitched this model using a 24 count 3 1/2 inch linen banding from Zweigart – it also fits nicely on a 16 count Zweigart banding that is 4 inches, a bit wider (if small isn’t your thing). The design calls for only two colors. I used DMC 4240 (a variegated one) and DMC 340. I think the variegated DMC threads don’t get enough publicity. While perhaps not having the catalog of them like Gentle Arts or Weeks Dye Works, or Classic Colorworks, they can be found in many big box stores (I can get them at Michaels), which makes them more accessible to some folks. And some of them have beautiful colors – like this one of blues and purples.
You can check on the Needlework Expo website to see if you local needlework store is registered to attend (and if not, encourage them to do so!). Let them know if you are interested in this pattern!
More Expo reveals coming soon!
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