Sewing Stuff

I like to shop local wherever I can to support businesses in the community. It’s getting harder though. Virtually all our local craft and wool shops have gone. We do have a large warehouse type of thing a few minutes drive from where I live and it sells all kinds of craft stuff. However I’m finding as it diversifies into the trendy scrapbooking and card making supplies it’s reducing the range of some of its more traditional crafts such as the fabrics and supplies for cross stitching.

I wanted to buy another Beatrix Potter cross stitch design book in the range I bought a few years ago and some Aida 18 count fabric. When I went last week they had neither. They’ve stopped stocking the chart design books and you can only buy complete kits. That’s a pain because the Hunca Munca design I wanted isn’t available as a kit, only as a chart. They now only stock DMC embroidery silks, no Anchor stock at all.

So I ventured online to browse the sewing supply sites. I’ve avoided this in the past for as I’m one who likes to see and feel what I’m buying in the sewing department and often I’ve found delivery costs high. I found one with a good range of Beatrix Potter design booklets and amazingly the price was slightly less than what I’d paid years ago.

I also saw some plastic bobbins for my trusty old sewing machine whilst I was looking around the site. Yet another thing the local warehouse supplier has stopped stocking. The down side was whilst browsing I saw some things I couldn’t resist in their 50% off sale.

I've only used a cross stitch kit once. A horse and foal picture for my daughter and it was really expensive so I've avoided them since then. However they had some lovely kits which were all half price. I got a sweet Christmas Peter Rabbit cross stitch kit for £5.25, the photo at the top. Another I chose was a gorgeous Me to You kit for £8.00. He's the grey bear with the blue nose below, isn't he beautiful? You also get the alphabet chart so you can customise it. Imagine everything you need including the needle and no running about. I'm converted!

Unbelievably the postage was only £1.00 and the order was sent out first class post about an hour after I ordered it. I got it the next morning, that's incredible! Marks & Sparks take over a week to deliver!

Seasoned cross stitchers may already know about them, the company is Sew and So www.sewandso.co.uk. If anyone wants to buy from them I can highly recommend them. They do deliver abroad too. I’m not on commission or anything, I’d never heard of them before. I doubt I’ll be wasting my time and petrol wandering about from now on, I’ll be buying from them!

Apologies to anyone if I've broken copyright with the images from their website. It was just to let people see how nice they are. If it's a problem I'll take them off if you let me know.