Recently a Stitching Cards customer contacted me to say that she had been told by her post office that International Reply Coupons (IRCs) were no longer available. This is a typical response from post office staff who do not know what IRCs are, or do not want the bother of ordering them…

Handmade Christmas cards can be traced back to fifteenth century Germany where cards with religious pictures were exchanged as Christmas gifts. The custom of sending Christmas cards by post started in Victorian England with the advent of the penny post…

I have been designing stitching cards for over ten years but the origins of the craft go back much further. The first mention that I can find about stitching cards is by Dutch designer Erica Fortgens. She started writing books with instructions and patterns for making stitching cards in the early 1990s.

In the forward to her book “Embroidery on Paper” Erica Fortgens tells how she got started…

Earlier this summer I went on holiday to the beautiful village of Klosters in the Swiss mountains. It is in a tree lined valley with wooden chalets built alongside a fast flowing river. We stayed in a traditional hotel and the lounge area had a large fireplace.