Mimi in Stitches really began in 1978, although I didn’t call it MIS back then. I didn’t call it anything. Newly married and transplanted from my childhood home on the New Jersey shore, I was working in a small dress shop in Richmond, Va. The space next door happened to be occupied by a needlepoint shop. I was intrigued, and so it began. When no customers were there to bother us, lol, the dress shop owner taught me to stitch, and my new found hobby became a bit of an obsession (I know you can relate). My first couple of pillows…”you’re no bunny ’til some bunny loves you” and one with some pretty adorable farm animals, along with what quickly became an entourage of other WIPs, moved with me to Louisville, to Charlottesville, to Chicago, to Manhattan. 

In New York I learned so much from classes with the GOAT, Rita, of Rita’s Needlepoint. In her lower level shop on 91st Street I was first introduced to the kaleidoscope of stitches beyond continental and basketweave, and to the beauty of hand painted canvases. After a few years in NYC, my needles and my stash traveled with me again, to Larchmont, NY, where I worked as a canvas painter for the owner of a shop no longer around, Eye of the Needle. Painting canvases  is hard work. It requires a steady hand, sharp vision, patience and artistic ability. I loved it but when I found myself with two babies just 15 months apart, well, need I say more?

Fast forward a zillion years….from Larchmont to Rye, NY, Greenwich, CT, Nantucket, MA, Wellington, FL and now San Francisco, all during which I kept my hobby going; stockings for my three children, for the children of friends, ottomans, pillows, framed baby gifts, college seals and backgammon boards, belts and belts and more belts! I’ve spent the better part of my life as a competitive equestrian and needlepoint belts were for a long time the haute couture of equestrian fashion. IYKYK. Along the way, I owned a small home furnishings and accessories shop, I wrote a coming of age in the horse world novel*, and most importantly and my greatest accomplishment far and away, I raised three kind, motivated, lovely people, mostly on my own. I’m super grateful I get to be their mom.  We have lived in some pretty great communities over the years, mostly along the ocean, and long walks on beaches are my consummate inspiration.

When my first grandchild was born, I delivered my needle into yet another stocking. Now I was becoming a fiber junkie and a “collector” of canvases. You know how that goes. And whenever  I couldn’t find something I had a hankering to stitch, I just painted up a canvas for myself. With great admiration for all the beautiful designs that exist and the “little engine that could” whispering in my ear, Mimi in Stitches was born. Now, I employ both hand painting and fine art stitch printing to bring my designs to canvas, to you, and ultimately to your customers.

My work is inspired by the life I have led, books I’ve read, the places I have lived, the beaches I’ve walked, people I have met, gardens I have tended, my travels. I hope you will find canvases here that you believe your customers will love, and I hope you encourage them to personally curate their fiber selections, to jump in to color swaps and, as I like to call it, to “tweak” these canvases to give them their own vibe. Please be sure to email me photos of finished works; I love to see how fellow stitchers make my canvases “become.”

Thanks for visiting my website. I hope you find some joy here. Please remember to be kind, to yourself, to one another, to animals and to our planet.

Mimi

*PS if you’d like a copy of JOHN COURAGE, it would be my pleasure to send you one...
Shoot me an email.