Hi, I'm Sara

The first thing I ever stitched was a wobbly little heart, sitting next to my grandmother. She had a tin full of thread in every color I could imagine, a needle she somehow never lost, and endless patience for a little girl who pulled every stitch far too tight.

She showed me how to make one small X. Then another. Then how a row of them, slowly, turns into something you can hold in your hands. I didn't know it then, but she was giving me something I'd need much later.

Life got busy, the way it does. Then I became a mom of two, and somewhere between the lunchboxes, the lost shoes and the third bedtime story, I went looking for something that was just mine. I found my way back to a hoop.

These days I stitch after the kids are asleep. The house goes quiet, I make a cup of tea, and I sit in my corner of the sofa with a hoop on my lap and a lamp over my shoulder. Some nights I manage twenty minutes. Some nights it's "just one more row" until much later than I'd like to admit. Either way, I always feel a little more like myself when I put the needle down.

That's where Hoop & Hearth began

I started drawing my own designs because I wanted patterns that fit my evenings: cozy, a little whimsical, and small enough to actually finish. Patterns that are kind to stitch. No endless confetti. No forty shades of beige you can't tell apart at ten o'clock at night. Clear charts with symbols you can read without squinting, because I'm usually stitching when I'm tired too.

Lately my kids have started pulling up a chair beside me, and teaching them the same little X my grandmother taught me has been one of my favorite parts of all this. So you'll find kid-friendly patterns and tips here too.