What inspired Natalie to try hand embroidery?
Sep 08, 2022
Natalie Smart re-found hand embroidery just five years ago. Now she helps other adults learn and enjoy the unique Bargello style of embroidery with her kits and workshops.
Here's Natalie's story of returning to a childhood love, inspired by an exotic holiday.
'When I was a child, I dabbled in hand embroidery, first at primary school, then I was given cross-stitch kits as gifts, that I enjoyed getting stuck into.
I didn’t really get the hand embroidery bug again until 5 years ago during a trip to Morocco 🇲🇦
I discovered this amazing stall in Marrakech, where they were selling beautiful leather hand-embroidered bags, and I bought several of them in different colours!
As well as the bags, there was amazing embroidery craftsmanship everywhere!
The visit to Morocco inspired me to try hand embroidery again 🪡🪡🪡
Once I was back from my trip, I found an online course where I completed an embroidery sampler, trying out various embroidery stitches.
I then created this cute hand embroidered dog harness for little Miss Daisy with my newly acquired embroidery skills.
A couple of years later, I discovered the groovy Florentine Stitch in my 1970s embroidery magazines, and that’s when I discovered the wonderful world of Bargello embroidery. I’ve been addicted to this style of embroidery ever since! 💕💕💕'
Have you tried hand embroidery?
Natalie is founder of Bargello a GoGo, and we are so happy to have her as a Creativity Found Collective member.
For more info about Bargello embroidery and the kits, supplies and workshops that Bargello A GoGo offer, click here.
Creativity Found Collective
The Creativity Found Collective is a membership for artists and crafters who share their creative skills with grown-ups through workshops, online courses, products or subscriptions. It is also a membership for business-support enterprises who use their expertise to help those artists and crafters to grow their businesses.
We promote their offerings on the website and connect them with a network of like-minded business owners.
All of this is backed up by the Creativity Found podcast, in which I chat with grown-ups who have found or re-found their creativity later in life.
You can find out more about the Creativity Found Collective membership here.
And don't forget, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.
