Get Your Stitch on with These Beginner-Friendly Embroidery Kits
- Words by Peppermint
Ever since Emma Downing of Yarn Industries took us into the magical world of embroidery – you can find four exclusive Peppermint embroidery patterns in Issue 51 or in Sew&Tell Issue 1 – we here at Peppermint have been OBSESSED with getting our stitch on.
Hand embroidery can be a meditative practice that creates complex and beautiful artworks in fabric form. It can also give you all the fun of drawing on your clothes when you were a kid, while being adult appropriate, kind of posh, and lasting through a good laundry cycle. It’s a great way to add individualism and style to your wardrobe or spruce up an old piece that no longer sparks joy.
If you want to dip your toe into the waters of embroidering, a great place to start is with a ready-made kit. An embroidery kit provides all basic tools you’ll need to get started (a hoop, needles, thread, fabric to embroider) in one fell swoop, as well as a gorgeous design to banish those blank page (or fabric) blues, plus all of the instructions you need to ensure your work of art turns out looking as beautiful as the one on the box. Kits can help build your confidence and proficiency until you feel ready to go rogue one day, freehand style, embroidering everything in sight.
To that end, we’ve found five beginner-appropriate and super cute embroidery kits to help you take your first steps on the not-so-long and arduous journey of becoming a master of the craft!
Yarn Industries
Our personal embroidery guide Emma from Yarn Industries actually offers a beginners’ embroidery kit, a deluxe box that contains everything you need to learn the craft of embroidery and create a gorgeous piece of Australiana hoop art (you can choose between Gum Leaf, Banksia, Wattle or Parakeet designs). Each kit contains a ‘Beginners Guide to Embroidery’ booklet that has step-by-step instructions for all the stitches you need to know and tips and tricks to guide you on future projects. The kit even includes test fabric for you to practise your stitches on – now that’s forward thinking!
Hook, Line & Tinker
Hook, Line & Tinker was launched by Laurie Dolhan in 2017, providing embroidery patterns and kits based on Laurie’s original illustrations. Her patterns are striking yet simple, perfect for a novice needler with limited colour palettes and basic introductory stitches. Her collections are sorted by recurring motifs and themes and come in three levels of increasing difficulty. Our favourites are the nautical designs like this Deep Dive kit, a first-time-friendly kit inspired by Moby Dick’s majestic whales.
Tusk and Twine
Self-taught embroidery artist Kate Beardmore created Tusk and Twine as a passion project to combine her love of textiles and hand stitching and her background in graphic design. Her work is lush as all get out, with crisp line art and colourful bursts of botanical detail. This Grow Wild embroidery kit creates a gorgeous five-inch work of art and comes with all the supplies you’ll need, as well as all important information on materials, transferring your pattern, preparing your hoop and starting to stitch.
RikRack
RikRack’s founder Riki Inge has a masters degree in textile design with specialisation in embroidery and dyeing. Those skills combine in her embroidery kits, where the intricate yet deceptively easy designs come pre-printed on the fabric, saving you the hassle of pattern transferring all those sumptuous little flourishes. This bee-utiful kit is appropriate for “beginners and beyond” and not only comes with instructions but has its own page on rikrack.com full of tips, tricks and troubleshooting!
Brynn and Co
How could we here at ‘Have Hope’ Headquarters resist Brynn & Co’s brilliant, botanical, negative-space, positive-slogan pieces? Despite the overall dazzling effect, the design utilises only a handful of common embroidery stitches and includes a visual, step-by-step guide to the creation process. This kit comes with fabric pre-printed with the design as well as a paper copy of the pattern so once you get your hand in you can sew it again and again and again, on anything your heart desires!
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Look, I don’t want to make anyone panic but IT’S DECEMBER!!! If you’re planning to give homemade gifts, you’re going to have to act fast. …
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🌻 The Paddington 🌻
This is a much-loved staple, created for Issue 50 in 2021. We love seeing the #PeppermintPaddingtonTop continually popping up in our feeds!
How stunning is our model Elon MelaninGoddessEfon – she told us it was one of the first times she had been asked to come to a shoot with her natural hair. 🌻
We worked with South African patternmaker Sarah Steenkamp of @FrenchNavyNow_ to create this wardrobe essential – the perfect puff-sleeve blouse. Raglan sleeves make it the ultimate beginner sew, plus the gorgeous back buttons let you add your own personal twist.
Pattern via the link in bio! 🪡
Photos: @KelleySheenan
Fabric: @Spoonflower
Model: MelaninGoddessEfon
“In the 1940’s, Norwegians made and wore red pointed hats with a tassel as a form of visual protest against Nazi occupation of their country. Within two years, the Nazis made these protest hats illegal and punishable by law to wear, make, or distribute. As purveyors of traditional craft, we felt it appropriate to revisit this design.”
Crafters have often been at the heart of many protest movements, often serving as a powerful means of political expression. @NeedleAndSkein, a yarn store in Minnesota, are helping to mobilise the craftivists of the world with a ‘Melt The Ice’ knitting pattern created by @Yarn_Cult (with a crochet pattern too), as a way of peaceful protest.
The proceeds from the $5 pattern will go to local immigrant aid organisations – or you can donate without buying the pattern.
Raise those needles, folks – art and craft can change the world. 🧶
Link in bio for the pattern.
Images: @Gather_Fiber @NeedleAndSkein @a2ina2 @KyraGiggles Sandi.204 @WhatTracyMakes AllieKnitsAway Auntabwi2
#MeltTheIce #Craftivism #Knitting #CraftForChange
TWO WEEKS TO GO! 🤩
"The most important shift is moving from volume-led buying to value-led curation – choosing fewer, better products with strong ethics, considered production and meaningful stories. Retailers have real influence here: what you buy signals what you stand for. At Life Instyle, this means using the event to discover and invest in small-scale, planet-considerate brands that align with your values and your customer’s conscience. Consumers don’t need more things; they need better things, and retailers play a key role in selecting, contextualising, and championing why those products matter."
Only two more weeks until @Life_Instyle – Australia`s leading boutique retail trade show. If you own a store, don`t miss this event! Connect with designers, source exquisite – and mindful – products, and see firsthand why this is Australia’s go-to trade show for creatives and retailers alike. And it`s free! ✨️
Life Instyle – Sydney/Eora Country
14-17 February 2026
ICC, Darling Harbour
Photos: @Samsette
#LifeInstyle #SustainableShopping #SustainableShop #RetailTradeEvent
Calling all sewists! 📞
Have you made the Peppermint Waratah Wrap Dress yet? Call *1800 I NEED THIS NOW to get making!
This gorgeous green number was modelled (and made) by the fabulous Lisa of @Tricky.Pockets 🙌🏼
If you need a nudge, @ePrintOnline are offering Peppermint sewists a huge 🌟 30% off ALL A0 printing 🌟 when you purchase the Special Release Waratah Wrap Dress pattern – how generous is that?!
Head to the link in bio now 📞
*Not a real number in case that wasn`t clear 😂
#PeppermintWaratahWrapDress #PeppermintPatterns #SewingPattern #WrapDress #WrapDressPattern
8 Things to Know About January 26 - from @ClothingTheGaps:
Before you celebrate, take the time to learn the truth. January 26 is not a day of unity it’s a Day of Mourning and Survival for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
It marks the beginning of invasion, dispossession, and ongoing colonial violence. It’s time for truth-telling, not whitewashed history.
Stand in solidarity. Learn. Reflect. Act.
✊🏽 Blog written by Yorta Yorta woman Taneshia Atkinson.
🔗 Link in bio of @ClothingTheGaps to read the full blog
#ChangeTheDate #InvasionDay #SurvivalDay #AlwaysWasAlwaysWillBe #ClothingTheGaps
As the world careens towards AI seeping into our feeds, finds and even friend-zones, it`s becoming increasingly hard to ignore.
We just wanted to say that here at Peppermint, we are choosing to not print or publish AI-generated art, photos, words, videos or content.
Merriam-Webster’s human editors chose `slop` as the 2025 Word of the Year – they define it as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” The problem is, as AI increases in quality, it`s becoming more and more difficult to ascertain what`s real and what`s not.
Let`s be clear here, AI absolutely has its place in science, in climate modelling, in medical breakthroughs, in many places... but not in replacing the work of artists, writers and creatives.
Can we guarantee that everything we publish is AI-free? Honestly, not really. We know we are not using it to create content, but we are also relying on the artists, makers and contributors we work with, as well as our advertisers, to supply imagery, artwork or words created by humans. AI features are also creeping into programs and apps too, making it difficult to navigate. But we will do our best to avoid it and make a stand for the artists and creatives who have had their work stolen and used to train AI machines, and those who are now losing work as they are replaced by this energy-sapping, environment-destroying magic wand.
Could using it help our productivity and bottom line? Sure. And as a small business in a difficult landscape, that`s a hard one to turn down. We know other publishers who use AI to write stories, create recipes, produce photo shoots... but this one is important to us.
`Touch grass` was also a Merriam-Webster Word of the Year. We`ll happily stick with that as a theme, thanks very much. 🌿
