Chain of Hearts by Kim Beamish

When we updated our website last year, a new feature was added that has quickly become our favourite – the Project gallery.

The Project gallery allows you to filter over 1,300 of the world’s most beautiful needlework projects in ways you never dreamed. We’ll talk more about this at another time, but for today may we suggest you click HERE.

This link will take you to a gallery featuring all the projects we’ve published by Canadian design Kim Beamish including her latest design, Chain of Hearts from Inspirations magazine issue #125.

Before we take a closer look at Chain of Hearts, seeing all of Kim’s designs together has been fascinating, revealing an underlying theme in her work that we hadn’t even noticed before.

What became apparent is Kim’s work has been celebrated as a perfect balance of beauty and purpose - delicate, finely embroidered pieces seamlessly belonging in everyday life.

For most of us, the core purpose of our endeavours as stitchers is not to create museum pieces, but rather a beautification process where we embellish our daily lives with exquisite needlework.

How great is it when our hard work is given a practical role for all to enjoy?

Chain of Hearts fits this brief beautifully, a charming rectangular mat worked in the traditional monochrome palette and created using an innovative combination of Hardanger, pulled thread and drawn thread techniques.

Too many of us might create a piece like this for ourselves and put it somewhere out of reach to admire but not to touch.

Yet this type of project is perfectly suited to getting amongst the hustle and bustle of life and providing a practical purpose to our passion.

The delightful design features a heart motif, which appears throughout the piece, including along the border and the edges of the central pattern.

Three weights of snowy white perlé cotton have been used and the mat is finished with a pretty picot hem and measures 22cm x 38.5cm wide (8 ⅝” x 15 ⅛”).

Chain of Hearts is a fabulous adventure for your needle, especially if you enjoy counted thread embroidery. In fact, you might say it’s akin to a counted embroidery safari thanks to Kim’s adventurous combination of stitches and techniques.

Once completed you’ll have a gorgeous embroidery project that is ready to take its place in your day-to-day life.