We have been good friends for many years and shared a passion for stitching and a love for creating gorgeous designs. We launched our sister company, Historical Sampler Co, 25 years ago and are lucky enough to have an amazing customer following. In 2018 we created our own subscription box service, Cotton & Twine, which has grown beyond our wildest expectations into a fantastic community of fellow Stitchers from around the World.
How We Started
Suzanne and I have been friends for over 30 years, we first met when our husbands worked together and the four of us have remained good friends ever since. We both got married in the early 90’s and then went on to have our first babies within months of each other.
As young mums, we shared an interest in crafting, particularly cross-stitch. We struggled to find designs that we liked and so in 2001 we started designing our own cross stitch patterns. We then decided to sell the patterns and so the Historical Sampler Company was born.
We set about designing our first collection of cross stitch designs. This took some time as, by this time, we had 5 small children around our feet! We took a brave step and with the help of lots family child care, we attended our first retail show at Olympia, London in the spring of 2002. To our surprise our designs were well received and we really enjoyed meeting new customers, some of which still buy from us today. The success of the Show spurred us on to continue with our designing. At that stage, we only had 7 designs but since then we have built our collection to over 200 including cross stitch and tapestry designs . The company has grown steadily since that time and we are now stocked in a large number of outlets around the World including Royal School of Needlework, The Portrait Gallery in London and John Lewis.
When we first started the Company we worked from a spare bedroom in Joanne's home, we then moved into a beautiful wooden cabin in Joanne's garden and then in 2020, as the business had expanded so much, we moved into an office building with warehouse. We are so lucky to work in this industry and be surrounded by beautiful threads and fabrics.
At the outset, our aim was to produce a high quality product. We sourced the best fabric and thread we could find. We use Zweigart fabric for both our cross stitch and tapestry designs as we believe they product the best quality fabrics. We even have some of our fabrics specially dyed for us by Zweigart to achieve the vintage feel of our products. Our cross stitch kits include Zweigart fabric, DMC pre-sorted threads, gold plated needle and printed colour and black and white chart.
Originally our main aim was to create traditional Samplers based on original antique designs. We then started to include birth and wedding samplers in our range and from there have expanded to all areas of design. We gain our inspiration from popular images and keep up to date with current trends. We really hope you enjoy our range of designs.
Cotton & Twine
In March 2018 we launched a monthly cross stitch subscription box - one of the first on the market.
Each month we will bring you a new and exclusive Cross Stitch project, designed by a fabulous array of talented Designers from around the World.
Each Gift Box contains, along with the full kit, that month's appropriate finishing items, a carefully sourced gorgeous gift, a tasty sweet treat and an artisan tea bag.
We now also offer our subscribers the option to buy just the kit pack or just the PDF of the design.
Please join us on facebook and Instagram to keep up to date with all our news. We love hearing from our customers so please feel free to interact with us and comment on our social media pages.
Love
Joanne and Suzanne
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