It’s always exciting when we welcome a designer for the first time into the Inspirations family as we love introducing new artisans to the global needlework community and showcasing their work for all to see.

Our publishing team does an amazing job acting as quasi talent scouts keeping an eye out for designers the world over, that are either new to us or maybe even new to needlework.

To find our newest contributor to the magazine, they didn’t need to look very far afield…

This week we’re giving a special welcome to Naomi Small as she makes her Inspirations magazine debut with her project Little Angels appearing in issue #124.

It’s not just her project that makes this a special welcome, Naomi is actually one of our very own – she’s been teaching at our retail store The Bobbin Tree for several years now, and just a few months ago began working at the Inspirations head office as our new Kit Manager.

As we recently farewelled one of our longest serving team members, Sue Forrest, Naomi has picked up the baton and is now heading up our incredibly hard-working kit team.

Serendipitously, without any prior planning, it just so happened that at the same time Naomi became our new Kit Manager, we’re also congratulating her on becoming a published designer in the magazine. You go Naomi!

Naomi’s Little Angels are just that, an enchanting pair of angels made with delicately embellished felt.

This charming pair of heavenly creatures is fashioned from softly-coloured wool felt, decorated with lines of delicate gold stitching and embellished with tiny glass beads. Utilising classic embroidery techniques and easy-to-use fabric, each sweet little angel is finished with a sparkling bead halo and a ribbon hanging loop.

The finished angels measure 15cm x 16cm wide (6" x 6 ¼"), omitting the hanging loop, and are worked using a combination of eight different surface embroidery techniques.

These sweet little girls came about after Naomi wanted a project that was suitable for her students to create gifts for their children and grand-children.

As they are relatively quick to work up and very enjoyable to stitch, they make the perfect choice to work on during a stitch ’n’ chat session or even creating them with your kids/grandkids.

Also, for anyone new to embroidery, Little Angels is probably one of the most beginner friendly projects we’ve published, so this is the perfect piece to begin your needlework journey.

In case you were wondering how attached Naomi had become to her angels after making them, she affectionately named them Bethany and Angelique and, like any proud Mum, was super excited to see how beautifully they came up in the pages of issue #124 when it finally came out.

Thank you, Naomi, for being an amazing teacher at The Bobbin Tree, for heading up our kit department and for sharing your gorgeous angels for all to enjoy.

May Bethany and Angelique be a blessing to every home in which they reside.

Make Your Own Little Angels

We have all the materials you need to re-create this project yourself, from easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions to a Ready-to-Stitch kit with everything sourced for you.