Red House Needleworks grew out of two things I have loved for a long time: history and needlework.

My love for the needle began with my grandmother’s. Both of them had a hand in teaching me to appreciate sewing, stitching, and the kind of work that is made slowly and carefully by hand. Some of my earliest memories of needlework are connected to them, and I think a great deal of what I love about it today can be traced back to those early influences.

As a historian, I have always been drawn to old things, especially the ordinary things people made, used, and treasured. Antique samplers have a special way of bringing the past close. You can see the hand of the person who stitched them in the letters, borders, flowers, birds, houses, and even in the little mistakes. Many of them carry a name and a date, and suddenly a piece of linen becomes a small record of someone who lived generations ago.

That is really what draws me to sampler design.

With Red House Needleworks, I want to create charts that feel connected to that older tradition. Some are inspired by historic needlework, some are direct reproductions of original antique samplers, while others are completely new designs that simply carry the look and feeling of an earlier time. I especially love the needlework of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and often find inspiration in pieces from both America, Britain, and beyond.

More than anything, I want Red House designs to feel warm, familiar, and worth keeping. I hope these are pieces you will enjoy stitching now and that someone else may still treasure many years from now.

Stitching the Past Into the Present.