I think Crewelwork makes this kit sounds a little more complicated than it is. It’s not! Crewel is essentially an old word for Embroidery. That’s why you’ll often see Embroidery Needles also advertised as Crewel Needles. At one stage they were used interchangeably. Traditionally, the materials you would have used were wool threads on a cotton or linen twill. Think of items like the Bayeux Tapestry. Today, we’ve updated our materials but the stitches we use are the very same as those crafted 1,000 years ago! Now the term Crewelwork is often used to describe a very particular style of embroidery that still uses wools and extremely stylized plants and animals.
This design had a number of iterations before I settled on exactly which stitches and colours to use where. And that’s why I stitch every single design before I turn it into a kit. I often have a pretty good idea how things are going to go. Most of the time there’s very few changes from my first idea to the finished piece. But the odd time, I decide something isn’t working quite the way I wanted it to and I need to change it. Whether that’s using a completely different stitch, changing the colour, adding extra guidelines or changing the size of the design. I make all the mistakes in the beginning so you can stitch without stress
There’s 3 shamrocks in this design, each with 3 leaves. So although each Shamrock is different you’ll be stitching each leaf 3 times. But that’s good - the number 3 is pretty lucky in Celtic Mythology. Important things come in threes - birth, life, death; heaven, hell, earth;
In shamrock 1 we’re doing trellis and using stem stitch as a filling stitch. In shamrock 2 half the leaf is filled with battlement, the other half is a single line of long & short. In shamrock 3 we’re stitching van dyke down the middle and seed stitch to fill. Then all the outlines and stems are finished in stem stitch. That’s 6 completely different stitches!
And in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re using my favourite colour combination in this kit - green and pink! There’s 3 shades of DMC stranded cotton. A massive 12 metres of thread in every kit! (And yes, I’ve measured every single metre of that myself!) This might be a little odd, but I actually really enjoy the process of making and packing kits. There’s just something so satisfying about organising all the materials. And I hope you enjoy the end result just as much as I do!
There’s also been a slight change in the subscription system. It won’t effect existing subscribers at all, but for new subscribers you can now do everything through the website! You’ll also now be able to pre-order kits as a once off instead of subscribing
Subscribe now to be sure you get this kit! You can find out all the info here.
If you've missed out on the subscription deadline (31st August 2026), you can also order this kit in the shop while stocks last.
