Love Your Leisure: Needlework

The Women’s Web ‘Love Your Leisure’ series will consist of interviews with a few female bloggers with fascinating hobbies, who’ve enthusiastically developed and fine-tuned them – and what’s more, write about them for the benefit of the rest of us! We hope you enjoy reading more about these bloggers and their passions. Presented in a Q&A format, this one is with Nima Titus, Needlework Enthusiast, who blogs about her passion at Made To Treasure.

Intro: Tell us a little about yourself

I am a Computer Engineer by profession who took an interest in needlecraft out of immense passion towards it.

Q1.Tell us a little about how your interest in needlecraft came about and what made you follow it up so dedicatedly?

I learnt the basics of needlecraft from my mom when I was 8. I was interested in making home décor, even during my school days. After college, computers were my passion. Soon after my marriage, I moved to Dubai along with my husband and started my job search, but nobody was ready to give a fresher a job. I found myself at home with plenty of free time. I used to browse online for hours and this got me hooked to new techniques in needlecraft. I was able to learn many new techniques with the help of online tutorials. My husband offered tremendous support by getting all the supplies from local stores and even sourcing rare stuff online. He encouraged me to stretch beyond my limits and to do more.

Q2. Which is your favourite type of needlecraft?

My favourite needlecraft technique is counted cross-stitch. I love hardanger, crochet and quilting.

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Q3. What do you find most satisfying about needlecraft?

I am glad to be using the valuable time that I have in the most productive and enjoyable way. I enjoy seeing each piece of my work coming into life. I love presenting my handmade pieces to people around me. Also I am glad that my handmade pieces are at times helping to raise funds for charity.

Q4. Are the raw materials easily available in India?

I am based in Muscat, Oman now. I source most of the craft supplies from Muscat, Dubai and India, and at times, I source it  from some online stores. In my experience, India is the best place to source affordable craft supplies. The problem comes when I try some new techniques that are not popular in India…and in that case, I might need to depend on an online store.

Q5. Needlework is pretty fascinating although a tad complicated! What would you say to others who would like to take it up but are hesitant to do so?

Be passionate about what you are doing. Do not think that you are going to be a millionaire by selling your handmade stuff. Try to handle it in the most relaxing way and then you will enjoy doing it more and that in turn can help you to find some ways to raise funds for your craft supply needs or to give a small helping hand for some good causes. If you have enough time and capital, you can even think of making it into a profitable business…just that you need to be passionate about what you are doing.

Q6. Which are some favourite needlework blog posts of yours? Also what other related blogs/ sites do you enjoy or find useful?

When I finish working on something, Ii love to blog about it to shout to the world that I made this! I enjoy reading the comments. So each blog post is my favorite. As of today I have 201 blog posts in my blog and to note a few which got more page views – Another Quilt Is Born, Snowflakes Christmas Ornaments, Hardanger Christmas Ornaments, Strawberry Crochet Pattern, Cross Stitched Grapevine and Doilies For The Season.

There are more than 500 needlecraft blogs that I follow and many websites which has good tutorials. You can see the complete list on my blog .

Q7. What advice would you give to beginners? Where to start and what are the basic materials required? How much time would a beginner need to finish a simple project?

Try to start the learning process with the materials available in your house. I first started to learn crochet with the thread that seals the rice bags! It was a white strong thread and I collected it for no particular purpose. When I got fascinated by the tutorials of crochet…I thought of trying to learn with that thread and it was a perfect start.

Good tutorial videos are like good teachers; we can learn many new techniques with the help of these videos. Take some time to browse through needlecraft communities or needlecraft blogs to find links to these videos. Or use your favourite search engines to find them. Some links are also available on my blog.

If you are passionate about what you are doing, time is not a problem. Even if you make a mistake in your first attempts, you will be able to correct it soon.

Previous Interviews With Hobby Bloggers:

Wildlife Enthusiast: Radha Rangarajan

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