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perfect stitchesLittle Star Stitches is a family run business based in theCotswolds, here Kerry Whiting tells us about the company’sorigins and the process of turning illustrations into kitsWhat prompted you tostart the company?I loved art when I was growing up and wasstrongly influenced by my dad who wasa marine artist, painting life-like seascapesin oil on canvas. I forever had a pencil inmy hand, and animals have always been myfavourite subject, I am completely animal mad.Another passion that evolved sometime duringmy childhood was cross stitching.After leaving school I concentrated on fineart prints and through this, I learned a newlove – computer graphics and design.Having my first child when I was 20 meantthat my career took a back seat, then, whenour second child arrived, my art got shelved– but I still carried on with cross stitch.Once our boys started school, I had moretime on my hands and so I began a personalmission of trying to combine art, computeraided design and cross stiching. So I started tosketch, and many, many drawings later Peanut& Muffin (the blue and pink elephants) were‘born’. I finally had my characters - the nextstep was turning the art into a crossstitchchart, and finally, I’d be able to stitch them!It wasn’t until many years later that I had theidea to create an entire range of cross stitchkits and at that point I came up with Humbug(the zebra) and Pretzel (the giraffe) as friendsfor Peanut & Muffin.Talk us through the process of creatinga new product from initial concept, tosourcing materials, product testing andfinal productionIt starts with a pencil! I sketch, sometimes Ialready know what I will be drawingbefore I put pencil to paper and I sketch andsketch until what I see with my eyes is what Isee in my imagination.Once I’m happy with the drawing, I maycolour it by hand, with either pastels, colouredpencils, water colours or pro-markers, othertimes I take it straight to the computer. It’s thenscanned in and the charting process begins.Before we start charting, I pick the coloursof thread that I think will work best, if it’s acolour scheme we haven’t used before I willstitch some small shapes using the colours tosee if they work, it’s surprising how different athread colour can look with different threadcolours stitched next to it.We don’t use automatic charting software,we use Photoshop. We lay a grid over thescanned image, decide on what size we wantthe completed cross stitch to be and thenstart laying down symbols – each symbol isput down individually. Then I will ‘draw’ thebackstitch on.We print out this draft chart and startstiching. Any errors or changes that we wantto make are marked on the chart and threadusage is monitored. Once the design is stitched,it’s photographed for the packet and the draftchart is finalised on the computer. The nextstep is turning the draft chart into the chartyou find in the packets, setting up a key forthe kit, creating a thread card, writing up theinstructions and producing a ‘thread sheet’ – asheet we use to cut the thread for the kits.Our kits are designed by a cross stitcher,for cross stitchers. We keep the squares ofthe printed chart as large as possible while stilltrying to keep the paper at an easy-to handlesize. We carefully choose symbols so that it’seasy to distinguish one from another and wepre-load the thread cards, with threads nextto the corresponding symbols to make thingseven easier.What are your future ambitions?Paper crafting is something we want to get ourcharacters into, it’s an area we’ve been tryingto do for over a year now. We are working ona paper crafting CDRom of Binkie and we alsowant to start making children’s cross stitch kits.We’re currently working on new Christmasdesigns for this year, in both the Peanut &Friends range and the Artic Lovables Range.We have two new ones – both from the ArcticLovables, there is ‘Binkies Reindeer Outfit’ and‘Wrapping Pressies’, these are both on paleblue aida and I just love them..What do enjoy most about beinginvolved in the craft industry?What I love about working in the craft industryis that creativity is essential, so my love of artdoesn’t have to get shelved, I can be artisticand be creative because that is what thisbusiness is all about. CFurther informationLittle Stars StitchesT: +44 (0)1453 546891W: www.littlestarstitches.com106 craftfocus