Welcome to Installment #8 of A Stitcher’s Christmas for 2019!

I’ve noticed over the years of writing here on Needle ‘n Thread that there are two things that stitchers especially love: good thread and good tools!

This year’s Stitcher’s Christmas has featured a good selection of threads (and more to come), and we’ve had one installment featuring tools. As we come towards the end of the series, I’m very happy to present you with some more beautiful tools for hand embroidery.

After Jenny Adin-Christie launched her new website earlier this year, I reviewed this snazzy little laying tool of hers. It’s one of my favorite stitching tools!

I jumped on her newly-launched site and indulged in a few of her other bits and bobs, too – like her bead / goldwork trays, a ceramic waxer, and a delicate, hand-painted needle minder. There’s nothing on her site that isn’t lovely and isn’t, I’m sure, very well made.

So I reached out to Jenny to ask if she wanted to join in on this year’s Stitcher’s Christmas, and she gave a very enthusiastic yes, offering a nice selection of four beautiful tools for one of you.

I’ll tell you all about them and then announce the winners of last week’s book give-away. So read on…

Jenny is an embroiderer, designer, and instructor who lives in the UK. She travels around the world to teach, and her needlework creations are always spectacular. They are beautifully designed and engineered, unique in style, involving gorgeous threads and other materials.

From small and dazzling – like this little butterfly millefiori kit – to complex and astounding – like her Wordsworth Harp needle case design – all of Jenny’s pieces are delightful to look at and evoke a very pleasant sense of wonder.

Her web shop is stocked with a marvelous selection of tools, many of them handcrafted. They are utilitarian and pretty. What more could you want?

First up is a ceramic heart waxer. I have one of these – it’s very sweet!

If you have a little display-type sewing box, or the type of sewing box where you have pretty little tools that are delightful to see and that make great conversation pieces, this is a nice addition.

For me, admittedly, I like a useful tool – which this is – so, yes, I actually do run my thread through the beeswax, even though I know that some day, it will all be used up. (But I can restructure a new filling, methinks!)

Next, we have a hand-made stainless steel mellor.

A mellor is a tool often used in goldwork, but handy for other types of surface embroidery as well. It can be used as a laying tool, as it’s quite comfortable to hold, and it can also be used as a general Poker-and-Prodder-of-Things, when you need to poke and prod things while stitching – which happens more often than you’d think!

You can read more about the mellor here, where I discussed its use in a goldwork project.

The third tool is a hand-crafted, carefully engineered pricker.

The pricker is used mostly as a tool for creating transfer patterns to use with the prick-and-pounce transfer method, which you can read about here.

With this pricker, you can change out the side of the needle you want to use – so you can pierce very tiny holes with a #12 needle, or you can increase the hole size by using larger needles all the way up to a #8.

I don’t have one of these yet, but it’s on my list. There’s a great selection of colored handles along with the more traditional wood shown above. I’m quite partial to the green and the blue handles. What about you?

Finally, the winner will also receive one of these little stiletto / laying tools made by Jenny’s dad.

I’ve used mine almost daily since the day I received it as a gift (thank you, Holly! again and again!), and I love it. If you’ve never used a laying tool, it’s a perfect one to start with. If you use laying tools, this one will surely become a quick favorite!

You can read specifically about this laying tool here on my review of it, and if you’re unsure of what a laying tool is and how it works, you can read this article and watch this video.

Jenny’s little tool also works well as a stiletto, to open up holes in your ground fabric for all kinds of reasons, including for making eyelets in whitework, or for plunging goldwork threads, or for any other reason you might need to widen up an opening in fabric without breaking the weave.

It’s a perfectly balanced, smooth, weighty little tool and great to have in your stitching arsenal!

Give-Away Guidelines

To join in today’s give-away, please follow these guidelines:

1. Leave a comment on the comment form below. If you’re not sure how to get to the comment form, click on this link – it will take you straight there. Your comment must be left on the website on today’s article, not on any other article. Comments submitted via email are not eligible and I am not able to reply to them due to time constraints. Please do not comment as a reply to another comment. Replies are not counted.

2. Be sure that your comment has a name on it that is recognizable as yours. You might include a last name, nickname, or the place you live.

The reason I particularly mention this one is that it reduces confusion when the winner is announced. It’s always hard to disappoint people if they mistake the name for their own!

3. Make certain your email address on the comment form is entered correctly, so that I can email you if you win. Leave the “website” line of the comment form empty. Do Not leave your personal contact information in the comment box itself. In other words, don’t sign your comment with your email address or your mailing address! That’s just an invitation for spam.

4. In your comment, answer the following question:

What kit designed by Jenny captures and delights you the most and what do you like about it? You can browse through her kits here. There aren’t too many in stock right now, but you can still enjoy looking!

5. Leave your comment before 5:00 AM central time (Kansas, USA) Monday, December 23rd. The winners will be randomly drawn that morning and will be announced at the end of that day’s give-away.

If you love lovely tools, then go forth and comment, and in 2020, you may be adding these delightful pieces to your needlework box!

Search Press Book Winners!

The winners of last week’s give-away from Search Press – featuring four different sets of books, one set to each winner – are Maura Witt, Sian Owen-Cruise, Laura Meltzer, and Nina Burnsides. I’ll drop you all an email with further details. Thanks to all who participated!

If you’re eager to get your paws on some of the new books coming up in 2020 (there are some real beauties on the list!), you’ll find them all on my Amazon Recommendations page here, under the Recommendations list. You can add them to your Wish List or pre-order them now, so you’ll be among the first to receive them!

My Amazon Recommendations page is an affiliate page, which means that any purchases you make through the links on that page result in a small commission for Needle ‘n Thread. Every penny helps, so thanks for your consideration!

Don’t Forget…

You can still sign up for Monday’s installment of A Stitcher’s Christmas – a full set of the Elizabethan range of crewel wool from Renaissance Dyeing.

The winners for that will be announced this Friday, when I’ll regale you with a gorgeous color-themed give-away from French Needle.

See you then!