I loved my internship and found the embroidery world fascinating -- and when I graduated and EL offered me a job, I happily jumped on board.The more I learned, though, the more I noticed that the machine embroidery design industry lacked a certain type of art fitting today's savvy indie crafters. I wanted designs that fit a different kind of style. Since I couldn't find them, I decided I'd just have to make them myself.

I approached EL president Deb about starting a new design line, and she did me one better and helped me plan a whole new site. I wrote up a business proposal, we worked together on the process, and Urban Threads was born. As art director, I collaborate with the fantastic artists, computer geeks, and other creative people in our small, employee-owned company to make the designs come to life.

Urban Threads opens a new world of creative possibilities to the crafting community. You'll find three kinds of art to suit your needs: machine embroidery, hand embroidery, and clip art for iron-on transfers or personal design.

I'll post new designs every day around noon (Central time), so you can spend your lunch break checking out Urban Threads for sweet new stuff.

Urban Threads offers the unique chance to personalize crafty things with a distinctive kind of art. The designs you find here are meant to go anywhere, on anything.

If you don't have an embroidery machine (yet) you can use the hand embroidery designs to make your spiffy things that much spiffier.

And, if you live in fear of needle and thread, use the digital stock art section for scrapbooking, web design, and iron-on projects.

Be creative with the designs! Embroider a hoodie, hand stitch a bag, make an iron-on shirt for your cat. The possibilities are endless.

The opportunities for you to fully explore your craft and passions are numerous and ever-expanding, especially with your input. Urban Threads is not only a place to find cool ideas, designs, and projects, but to share your own ideas with other crafty folk. Submit your projects to the gallery, offer ideas for new designs, or even see your art become designs by being a featured artist at Urban Threads.

Thanks for visiting and checking out Urban Threads. I can't wait to see all the crafty things that you make! The possibilities are endless, and the fun is just beginning, so come one, come all, and make, create, and embroider your mark on the world!

Read on to meet more of the crafty people who make Urban Threads run, and take a look around our studio tour!

Karline, Marketing
The daughter of a former home ec teacher, Karline has been crafting since she could be trusted with a big plastic needle. As Niamh’s primary cohort in Urban Threads, she works on most everything that doesn’t require fine art skills – answering your questions, crunching lots of data, philosophizing on the blog, and even writing the occasional tutorial. Karline’s previous gigs have included stage crew wrangler and managing editor of a local arts and culture mag – and she’s managed to work sewing into most of them.

Colman, Illustrator
At age two, Colman was given his first crayon. Shortly after that he realized that he loved to draw and that he would never stop. Since that time, he has given up crayons and moved on to the pencil, oil paint, digital illustration, and many other media. He has illustrated for many years for various screen printing companies, so the switch to designing for embroidery was a natural and painless evolution. Colman still makes digital illustrations, still makes oil paintings, and still loves drawing with a pencil, but to this day, he refuses to pick up another crayon.

Kelly, Digitizer
A digitizer’s desk is where the machine embroidery magic happens. Kelly uses a computer program similar to drawing software to trace a piece of art in various layers, playing with stitch type and direction and color to add texture, depth, and accents. It’s a combination of art and science – a logical occupation for someone who started college as a bio-chem major before switching to graphic arts. Kelly’s almost-4-year-old son visits the office every afternoon, distributing chocolate and smiles.

Joe, IT Geek
Joe was raised into technology from a very early age. He built his first computer with his father when there was still a turbo button to boost from 8MHz to a blazing 16MHz, and hasn’t stopped since. He’s worked solely in IT since immediately after his time spent in various Minnesota state learning institutions, with a bit of dabbling and internships before. His role in Urban Threads, as you could probably guess, is to “make it go.”

Deb, Da Man
An executive powerhouse in jeans and flip-flops, Deb is the company’s president and fearless leader – and one of the people who developed it into the employee-owned commune of creativity it is today. When she’s not keeping us crazy Urban Threads kids in line or bursting in with breaking news that foxes, not owls, are the hot new trend, she’s reading voraciously (Cold War fiction in particular) or traveling the world. Deb is an Aquarius, which explains a lot.

Craft Bunny, Mascot  
The loveable furball of death and destruction was given to Niamh as a gift when she was in college as a token of her love of Monty Python and her strange obsession with fanged bunnies, and has been eating her scissors ever since. Craft Bunny’s hobbies include consuming large quantities of embroidery thread, showing off his fangs, occasionally taking over tutorials for his own uses, and otherwise wreaking havoc in the studio. He considers himself a very crafty individual, and we don't argue with anything with that many teeth. (Need your own fanged bunny? He's the creation of ToyVault and you can catch one on Amazon, among other places. Mind your fingers.)