Favorite Finds Product Reviews

Care Packages

Anytime is the right time to show your friends and relatives that you care, but Valentine’s Day is a special time to take some extra effort. We found gift ideas for your stitching friends, as well as your “should-be-stitching” friends and relatives. Who knows, you might already be converting them with your enthusiasm for stitching!

If you like the products reviewed here, please ask your local needlework shop if they carry them. If the store doesn’t stock these items, you can order online, but be sure to tell your store owner about these great products that they might want to start supplying for their customers.

C.A.K.S. Charles Austin Kreinik Shoelaces

Suggested retail price, $10 These shoelaces will not only spruce up your sneaks, but they will help an important nonprofit as well. These laces come in a wide variety of colors and would make an extra-special Valentine’s Day gift.

Doug and Myla Kreinik created a line of brightly colored shoelaces to honor their son. Here is their story:

“C.AK.S. Laces honor Charles Austin Kreinik who took his own life at age 28. In the end Charles was affected by physical pain, alcoholism and depression, but in brighter days he was a gifted person with a quirky humor and generous spirit. You could even spot that in his clothes: he loved wearing unique, patterned socks and bowties. Suicide dimmed that life.”

Part of the proceeds from sales of these laces benefit a fund aimed at suicide prevention, addiction counseling and grief support programs.

Purchase C.A.K.S. at your local needlework shop or visit www.kreinik.com.

Kelmscott Designs Elizabeth I Scissors Needle Minder

See retailer for price. Do you have a friend you stitch with who always asks to borrow a needle because she dropped hers and can’t find it? What she needs is a needle minder, a magnet that keeps sharps where they belong—with your stitching. Kelmscott Designs has a wide variety of needle minders, and my favorite is the Elizabeth I Scissors. Place the magnet on the “wrong” side of the fabric you are stitching and place the “scissors” part on top. The magnet will hold your needle even if you drop it or your cat grabs your stitching like a scratching toy (it happens!).

Kelmscott Designs only sells to retailers, so provide this website address to the owner of your local needlework shop: www.kelmscottdesigns.com.

Michael Powell Cross-Stitch Art

Suggested retail prices vary. Buildings, gardens, boats and any other subject Michael Powell touches with his paintbrush seem to melt into a sea of color. His magical pen-and-ink and watercolor artwork translates beautifully to cross stitch.

Cross-stitch kits and charts come in a range of sizes and complexity, from the triple-chart Place du Marché kit (shown) at about $180 to Little Gems Charts priced below $7. Prices listed on Powell’s website are given in British pounds with conversions to U.S. dollars according to the exchange rate at time of purchase.

Give one of these kits or charts to your BSF (best stitching friend) or make a bookmark from a Michael Powell kit for your valentine.

Purchase the kits or charts at your local needlework store, or visit www.michaelpowellart.co.uk.