Foundations
“Before you can make anything beautiful, you have to make it honest.”
— Miriam Osei, Course InstructorFour lessons that strip embroidery back to its honest bones — grip, grain, tension, and the first stitch.
Threading Your Needle Without Frustration
The difference between a knotted mess and a clean start is one deliberate motion.
Reading the Grain: Why Fabric Direction Matters
Aida cloth has a bias. Learning to work with it — not against it — is your first real skill.
Hoop Tension: The Foundation Nobody Teaches
Too tight and your fabric puckers. Too loose and your stitches wander. There is a middle path.
Your First Counted Pattern — Start to Finish
A complete small piece, finished and framed, before the end of your first week.
Pattern
Reading
“The chart is the score. Your needle is the instrument. Learn to read music.”
— Miriam Osei- 05
Decoding a Pattern Chart — Symbols, Colors, Keys
A chart is a language. Once you read it fluently, any pattern is possible.
26 min - 06
Scaling Patterns Up and Down Without Distortion
The grid is your friend. Grid paper, graph paper, even a napkin — the math is the same.
19 min - 07
Designing Your Own Pattern From a Photograph
Every photograph is already a cross-stitch pattern. We'll prove it.
38 min
By module’s end, you’ll design your first original pattern from a photograph of something you love.
Color
& Texture
“Thread is paint. The fabric is canvas. The only question is how honest you’re willing to be about color.”
— Miriam Osei
The Color Wheel Is Not Your Enemy
Sample Thread Pairings
Thread Weight and Stitch Coverage: A Love Story
Blending Threads for Depth and Shadow
You’ll finish this module able to mix thread colors the way a painter mixes pigment — by eye, by instinct, by practice.
Finishing
& Framing
“The last five percent of a piece is where most people give up. It’s also where it becomes a finished work.”
— Miriam Osei
Blocking, Washing, and Pressing: The Final Mile
A piece that puckers is a piece that wasn't blocked. We fix that here.
Framing Without a Frame Shop
Mount, stretch, and hang your work so it looks like it belongs in a gallery.
Why I cap enrollment at 60 students.
I’ve taught embroidery in every format — workshops, retreats, big online cohorts. The big cohorts are where I learned what doesn’t work.
When 400 students enroll, I can’t answer questions about your tension problem. I can’t look at a photo of your hoop and tell you what’s actually wrong. The feedback becomes generic. The learning becomes passive.
So I cap it. Sixty students. Real feedback. Actual conversation. You finish pieces, not just lessons.
— Miriam
Founding members receive the course at the lowest price it will ever be offered, plus direct access to Miriam during the first cohort.
Enrollment closes when seats fill or April 15, 2026 — whichever comes first.
Save your seat.
Join the waitlist and we’ll send you a free pattern sampler — a small counted design to practice while you wait.
Stitch · 2026