Going back to my Roots

Recently I launched new Bearpaw Craft Classes for the Spring/Summer term. It is quite a risk offering new classes - should I just teach the popular crochet and patchwork classes each week, which are always a sell-out, but risk boring my repeat customers? Or do I offer some new ideas and risk not getting enough bookings?

So I am taking a bit of a risk offering a needlepoint class. Needlepoint (or tapestry as it's also called) doesn't seem to have had the same craft revival as crochet or embroidery recently. This wasn't the case back in the late 1980's when we last had a big craft revival. I was 21 when I completed my first needlepoint sampler, and for some mad reason, decided that I would start my own business designing and producing needlepoint kits! I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but a mixture of naivety and optimism drove me on.

And so Cleopatra's Needle was born! To start with I designed kits for cushions which featured repeat patterns, just like fabric designs. I managed to rope my then boyfriend (now husband) into it as he was already a designer. And very annoyingly, the first design he produced turned out to be our best selling design ever! That was the Acorn above, I still have a few cushions of this on the sofa. This design is still available from the Cleopatra's Needle's current owner, so I guess it is still selling well.

The business became very successful and we sold into all the major department stores in the country (Liberty's was my first customer!), as well as being exported to USA, Australia and Europe.
But after a few years we had moved up to the Scottish Borders (from London) and grown a young family. I was too busy with babies and toddlers (and had started making quilts!) to get too involved in the business anymore. So Jonathan was left running it and it wasn't really what he wanted to do.
So we sold the business and made enough money to set Jonathan up as a furniture maker and our new business (which has led on to our current Homestore in Edinburgh) was born.

So back to the current day. I am very pleased to say that Cleopatra's Needle is still going strong (albeit with none of my designs anymore!) and you can visit their website here.
I had not picked up a piece of canvas for about 17 years when I dug out an old piece to design a small project for this new class a few weeks back.

But you don't forget these sort of things and it is quite a straight forward skill once you get started. Luckily I still have plenty of Appleton's Tapestry Wool (I have been using it in my crochet blankets for years!), so I designed this little 'New York Beauty inspired' pincushion.

It was very pleasurable to do, though more time consuming than I had remembered. And I had also forgotten that even the smallest completed canvas gets very warped and has to be 'stretch and blocked' on a board like this below.

I would love this very beautiful and rewarding art to get the same sort of attention as other crafts are enjoying at the moment. Maybe I will start a campaign for Needlepoint (because as you all know, I have so much spare time...).

I love the little completed pin cushion and I really hope I can teach this when the workshop comes up at the end of May. And once you have learnt the basics, you can go on to make amazing things like this duffel bag I made years ago for a book that we had been commissioned to write about Cleopatra's Needle's designs.

Unfortunately the book got cancelled due to the last recession in the early 90's, and was never published. But I still have a few bits and pieces that we designed at the time (well actually I could only find this one!). This certainly reminds me of how excited and inspired I was by needlepoint at the time. And not just me, this was Kaffe Fassett's big passion after knitting and before patchwork, and a lot of his needlepoint designs seem to inspire his current fabric designs.

Thank you for reading this very long story. Have you tried needlepoint before yourself? Has this post inspired you to have a go? Or does it seem hopelessly old-fashioned to you now?

I would love to hear what you all think!