Anna Pearson's Needlepoint Blog

Recently back from our third visit to Borghetto Calcinaia following much the same programme as in our previous visits and with three new people to join those who had been before. Special interest holidays work well, needlepoint and stitching are no exception, all the participants have a passion in common and I find needle pointers love flowers, gardens and visiting interesting art museums and quaint villages. They also enjoy their food and sampling recipes and fresh ingredients’ from the area.   A win win situation. Possibly the most important feature of the trip is the stitching project on offer; ideally everyone working on the same design – even if some details are adapted – works so much better with cross fertilisation of ideas and swapping of threads.    On our previous two visits we have worked on panels by the Del Robbia family – a famous family of potters from the area who produced their panels in the 16 century.This year we chose the attractive logo from th...

I have had the most wonderful, exciting and action packed year with the 45 anniversary of my needlepoint design and teaching and just at the beginning of the month my 80 birthday! The anniversary was so special in many ways, first with an extensive exhibition of work, needlepoint done by some very talented students, an opportunity to be inspired by ingenious adaptions of standard designs into upholstered pieces as well as a preview of all the new designs with their gorgeous threads and exciting stitchery     The other result was many, many people whom I had not seen for a very long time contacted me and some managed to attend the exhibition and assure us that they were still enjoying their stitching.   This reconnection meant an enormous amount to me and I must thank every one of you who responded. Another pleasure was our 9 th visit to Calabria, way down in southern Italy and a first, a visit to a beautiful estate in Tuscany which was an equal success and bot...