SIX YEARS LATER...
Once Upon A Time...
Melody started out designing and stitching custom cross stitch designs as completed pieces. At first it was just for friends and family but she soon found herself opening an Etsy shop. This was a fantastic creative outlet as well as an enjoyable way to make some extra money and she loved it….but her hands didn’t! She ended up with aching fingers that were starting to look gnarly too!
She knew that she couldn’t carry on doing that but didn’t want to stop stitching, so the idea
for Curious Twist kits appeared in her head. She could design patterns and then YOU get to
stitch them up, with simple instructions and all the gear you need to do it in one handy
package! Of course, they had to be cheeky, a bit rude, sassy and sweary just like she is. Why
fight against type huh? There’s a reason we get on!
Our First Cross Stitch Kit
The first kit she produced was ‘Be nice or Fuck off’ our ‘OG’ kit in red and black. Back then they were packaged in brown cardboard boxes like the one pictured here, with all the cross stitching goodies you'd expect but with thread on pegs and needles on felt.
We’ve upgraded our branding a lot since then. We re-designed the packaging, put the needles into little packs of three and had the instruction sheets professionally printed. This made for a much nicer cross stitch kit for sending out to YOU our wonderful customers.
Before long, Melody had outgrown her dining room so took the huge step of renting a studio space. It was literally a garden shed inside a local council heritage building, which was lovely, but small, and noisy. She hadn't imagined that things would take off so quickly and expanded the product range to include needle minders, scissors, project pouches, mugs and other stitchy supplies. This meant that in little over a year she need to move again to a larger studio space. And so a creative hub called Make which houses a collective of creatives and artists in Merseyside. Her studio space was bigger, but when the pandemic hit people were taking up new hobbies to stay busy and things got crazy busy for Curious Twist.
It was at this point I joined the team as her glamourous assistant! We were lucky that we had a bubble together and a safe environment to work. It completely helped to stop us going proper loopy.
During this time we also experimented with creating our own patterned and hand dyed Aida. Melody tried out all kinds of dye techniques and printed designs and they went down a storm. One of our most popular products today is the hand made blood spatter aida and the bloody hand print aida. Sometimes it’s a bit of a shock to arrive in the studio to a crime scene! The opposite is true when I arrive after a floss gloss thread wax making session and the studio smells bloody amazing.
So what’s next?
Exciting things are coming in 2023 that’s what!
We’re starting the year with some time off to recharge our creative batteries before getting busy on creating new designs; available as full kits and digital patterns, new cross stitch and sewing accessories and SHINY NEW PACKAGING!
Thanks for sharing our crafty journey with us, we look forward to seeing your completed
pieces so be sure to tag us in socials, it makes us so happy, it REALLY does.
