Kreinik silk and metallic threads make a sweet and simple cross-stitched heart.

Stitched Love Tokens: One Through Nine

Kreinik Calling! Exclusive to Mr X Stitch!

It’s Kreinik Calling! where Dena Lenham from Kreinik Manufacturing Company shares inspiration and innovation with threads!

Stitching for the holidays is one of the top ten motivators for needleworkers. Whether we are making decorations for our home or making gifts for friends and family, holidays give us themes (and deadlines) for our creative expression. In the arts and crafts industries, holidays are big business, as you can always count on good sales from Halloween and Christmas designs, for instance.

But Valentine’s Day as a holiday creeps up on us. Sure, when we were younger we had time to craft a paper mache flower, color a page of hearts, or decorate a card for our mom and/or grade-school crush, because Christmas was over (nothing new going on) and we were stuck inside in the middle of winter (yawn, boredom). Older and much busier, however, we are swamped at work, still cleaning up from the holidays, organizing papers for our taxes, not-to-mention recovering from get-togethers (and the flu). Before you know it, Valentine’s Day arrives and the thought of making a little love token for your love turns into the reality of just buying them candy.

So I say forget the February 14 deadline, and celebrate the themes of Valentine’s Day all year long. Love never goes out of style, and you can get miles of stitching and crafting ideas from it. Stitch hearts (lifted up, broken, or blessed), or stitch song lyrics and love icons. Stitch a memento of past loves (grandparents, old flames) or new ones (babies, crushes). We all know that stitching is good therapy; stitch your true feelings in a sampler of self-expression. Take all that Valentine’s Day represents—the good, the bad, the ugly and the lovely—and carry it through your stitching projects all year. We can all use a little love, any time.

“Here is the deepest secret nobody knows,” wrote EE Cummings, “I carry your heart (i carry it in my heart).” In honor of this age-old theme, and Valentine’s Day this week, I am sharing photos of some of my favorite stitched pieces of love and hearts, just a few design ideas to inspire you. Enjoy, stitch, share your heart and your love through your craft. The world needs it.

Sweet and soft metallic threads worked in basic backstitches add elegance to this dollar-store tea towel.
1. Sweet and soft metallic threads worked in basic backstitches add elegance to this dollar-store tea towel. It’s a quick, inexpensive, mood-lifter of a project that stitchers of all ages can make. Threads are Kreinik Braid, instructions from https://www.kreinik.com/shops/Embroidery-101-Hand-Towel.html
Celebrating a special couple with an silk thread embroidery project.
2. If you have an example of true love in your life, a couple that shows you what love is meant to be, honor them in an embroidery project. This project features hearts stitched in silk thread on a scrap of linen, with metallic thread accents, and attached to a burlap heart. A photo personalizes it even more. Threads by Kreinik (Silk Mori, Very Fine #4 Braid), project from https://www.kreinik.com/shops/Stitched-memory-heart.html
A charted needlepoint design from West End Embroidery featuring Kreinik threads.
3. This charted needlepoint design is a pattern available from West End Embroidery. Designer Yvonne Close blended a variety of threads and stitches to recreate something we all love: cupcakes! Visit http://www.westendembroidery.com/acatalog/Cup_Cakes.html for design information.
The Queen, a needlepoint design by Sandra Vargas, thread and stitch guide by Sandra Arthur, and distributed by Ruth Schmuff.
4. The fabulous needlepoint designer Ruth Schmuff has terrific senses of color, humor, and style. She also owns a needlework shop in Baltimore, Maryland. Get thee to the shop, and shop for this design: The Queen needlepoint canvas by Sandra Vargas. With a variety of stitches, threads, and embellishments picked out by designer Sandra Arthur, it’s a needlework wonder-land. See http://www.tistheseason.org/The-Queen/ for details.
This design is a simple word painted on needlepoint canvas, but it is brought to textile life through a variety of threads and stitches. Design by Lani Silver of Lani's Needlepoint.
5. This design is a simple word painted on needlepoint canvas, but it is brought to textile life through a variety of threads and stitches. Designed by Lani Silver, who also owns a needlepoint and knitting store in California. Visit http://www.lanisneedlepoint.com/ for information.
Designer Pam Kellogg created this cross-stitched bookmark using Kreinik silk and metallic threads on a piece of Zweigart band fabric. It's such a sweet design, reminiscent of old-fashioned stitched tokens, like the bookmarks you find in antique books.
6. Designer Pam Kellogg created this cross-stitched bookmark using Kreinik silk and metallic threads on a piece of Zweigart band fabric. It’s such a sweet design, reminiscent of old-fashioned stitched tokens, like the bookmarks you find in thrift stores and tucked into vintage books.
Kreinik silk and metallic threads make a sweet and simple cross-stitched heart.
7. Sometimes simpler is sweeter. This design features a pink background stitched in Kreinik Silk Mori, metallic x’s and o’s stitched in Kreinik Very Fine #4 Braid, and Kreinik Hot-Wire wired metallic braid to make the word…all done on a Tokens & Trifles brand perforated paper heart shape. It is attached to a greeting card.
Love is how you earn your wings, needlepoint design by Zecca
8. Here is a colorful design with a message of heart, hope, peace, and love. It’s by Zecca, a needlepoint canvas design company, and features a variety of threads and stitches. For more information on the design, visit http://zecca.net/needlepoint/
Cross stitched heart from a Breast Cancer Awareness design by Brooke Nolan for Kreinik Manufacturing Company.
9. Brooke Nolan created this cross stitch design for Breast Cancer Awareness, using Kreinik silk and metallic threads. It will be available on the Kreinik website later this year, but the heart is a simple motif you can stitch now, and add to any project.

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