Craft Focus - Feb/Mar (Issue 65)

email newsletters to make sure everyone is aware of our latest kits and all our other company news. Who is your target customer – who do you think your designs appeal to most? Because we have such a diverse range of kits, we think they appeal to everyone, from beginners to experienced stitchers, and men, women and children. Do you exhibit at trade shows, and if so, do you have any key events coming up? We have exhibited at many shows over the years, both in the UK and abroad. This year, we will be showing our latest designs at CHSI Stitches in February. How often do you launch new products? We launch new designs all the time, usually several each month. We put these onto our website immediately and we are also featured in a range of publications. You work with many different artists – have you any significant new or forthcoming designs that you can tell us about? Yes, we have just started working with Villager Jim, who is known as the Banksy of the photography industry. He is a wonderful wildlife and animal photographer, whose work is world-renowned even though he is anonymous and nobody knows who he is! The most famous of his photographs is After the Walk, which we launched as a cross stitch design recently. We are all very excited to be working with this new and fascinating addition to our team. What can we expect from Heritage Crafts for the rest of 2018? We will continue to produce more beautiful designs from our wonderful artists, and there will probably be some surprises! How can retailers get to see your kits? Many of our kits will be on display at CHSI Stitches, and retailers are always welcome to visit us here in Staffordshire – quite a few do this regularly. Just give us a call to arrange a time and we will make sure that we have the kettle on – there will probably be biscuits, too! Are there any stitching trends that retailers should be looking out for? Cross stitch does seem to be on the up again, with new groups setting up and a growing demand for workshops. We are giving this trend as much help as we can by introducing cross stitch to the general public at local shows and through our popular fan club, Heritage Scene. Heritage Crafts hcrafts.com craft focus 79 company profile