New Book | Life in Seasons Out Now

There is perhaps no greater way to share our life experiences with one another, than through the process of storytelling.

From the re-telling of events in our past, turning our day-to-day experiences into an entertaining listen, or casting our ideas for the future, telling stories is a powerful way of conveying our ideas, thoughts and emotions.

As a needlework fraternity, we are all well versed with the concept that our needle and threads are indeed storytelling tools.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a thousand stitches in a picture worth?

Internationally renowned, RSN trained and with a career in designing, teaching and creating remarkable stitched art spanning over 30 years, Nicola Jarvis is a highly accomplished and skilled artist across many disciplines.

One such discipline is indeed storytelling, as you will discover for yourself when you experience her debut book, Life in Seasons.

Prepare yourself for a literary adventure quite unlike any other.

Within the pages of Life in Seasons, Nicola has masterfully harnessed the full extent of her expansive creative talent and layered together a multi-faceted story using her sketches, paintings, poetry, photography and of course, her embroidery.

The stories Nicola tells are all beautifully woven together through her daily walks with her trusty canine Quince and cover her own life experiences, her passion for nature and the conservation of wildlife, exploration of the local flora and fauna, the spectacular English countryside, and the changing of the seasons.

All this is beautifully presented in a 160-page hardcover book featuring eight brand new needlework projects that Nicola designed, painted and stitched exclusively for this publication. Not forgetting of course, this is a step-by-step how-to project book that also comes with two lift-out pattern sheets.

This is without doubt one of the most beautifully presented and stylistically spectacular needlework books Inspirations Studios has ever produced.

Life in Seasons, Volume 1 | Winter & Spring is out now.

Life in Seasons |

Ready-to-Stitch Kits

The eight projects featured in Life in Seasons | Winter & Spring are some of the most creatively diverse we’ve ever published both in terms of their finish/construction and their approach.

Nicola has embraced a growing trend in needlework, where she starts with a pre-printed design then embellishes various elements with embroidery to enhance and accentuate key features.

This in turn means some designs are covered entirely in needlework, while others are partially embroidered leaving aspects of the printed design to show through, creating a beautiful partnership between print and stitch.

To help you re-create these eight magnificent designs, we have partnered with Nicola to create Ready-to-Stitch kits that include her original illustrations pre-printed onto fabric, along with all the threads you need to embellish the panels exactly as they appear in the book.

Once you’ve created your stitched panel, you can then choose your own way to display or construct the finished embroidery that best suits you.