Best Embroidery Blogs: 26 Checked Live

Most embroidery blog roundups have the same problem: they were written once, several years ago, and nobody has loaded the links since. Half the sites are parked, redirected to a shop, or last posted in 2019.

So the rule for this list was simple. Every site had to load, today, with a working page. All 26 did. Each one also carries its measured Domain Rating, which is the closest thing to an objective read on whether a blog has an audience or is a lovely site nobody has found yet.

How this list was checked

On 10 September 2026 every domain below was requested over HTTPS and had to return a 200 response with a readable page title. Then each was looked up against the Ahrefs Domain Rating API, which returned a rating for all 26. Where a site keeps its writing in a separate section, that section was requested too, and 23 of the 26 answered.

Three sites do not have a reachable path of that shape: NeedlenThread publishes from its own front page, and Sarah Homfray and Stitch Palettes organise their writing under differently named sections. They are in the list because they are genuine embroidery publications, not because a URL pattern matched.

We check larger lists the same way, including our guest posting sites roundup. What this check cannot tell you is whether the author still posts. A domain can return 200 for years after the last entry. Treat the rating as a measure of standing and the live check as a measure of existence, then look at the most recent post yourself.

Hand embroidery blogs

NeedlenThread (needlenthread.com, DR 57). Mary Corbet has been writing this since 2006 and it remains the site the rest of the field links to. The stitch library and the long-running project diaries are the reason; very few craft blogs of any kind sustain that for two decades.

Sarah's Hand Embroidery (embroidery.rocksea.org, DR 52). The other reference library, organised as a catalogue of stitches with clear photography rather than as a running blog. If you want to identify a stitch you have seen, start here.

Pumora (pumora.com, DR 21). Ideas, patterns and a stitch lexicon, written by an illustrator, and considerably more design-led than most of the field.

Mindful Mantra Embroidery (mindfulmantraembroidery.com, DR 20). Modern hand embroidery with a slow-stitching, wellbeing framing. One of the smaller sites here and one of the more distinctive.

Jessica Long Embroidery (jessicalongembroidery.com, DR 28). Designs and supplies, with a genuinely useful basics section including a pattern transfer glossary.

Sarah Homfray Embroidery (sarahhomfray.com, DR 26). Supplies plus a large body of instructional video, from a trained embroiderer. Strong on technique rather than on projects.

Elara Embroidery (elaraembroidery.com, DR 9) and Danielle Balfoort (daniellebalfoort.com, DR 3.5) are the two newest sites in the set. Both publish, both are tiny, and both are worth a look precisely because nobody has aggregated them yet.

Abide Embroidery (abideembroidery.com, DR 7) covers Christian embroidery kits and patterns with a tips and tutorials section.

Hannah Hand Makes (hannahhandmakes.com, DR 24) and Pam Ash Designs (pamashdesigns.com, DR 20) round out the independent end.

Machine embroidery blogs

This is a different readership with different problems. Nobody here is choosing a thread colour by feel; they are troubleshooting a stabiliser or a digitised file.

Designs By JuJu (designsbyjuju.com, DR 49). One of the larger machine embroidery design shops, with a blog that functions as applied documentation.

Embroidery Legacy (embroiderylegacy.com, DR 48). Trading since 1958, now heavily focused on digitising education.

Sweet Pea Australia (swpea.com, DR 46). In the hoop designs and a machine embroidery blog with a strong project bias.

AllStitch (allstitch.com, DR 41). Supplies first, but the embroidery blog covers patch and trend material you will not find on the hand side.

Machine Embroidery Geek (machineembroiderygeek.com, DR 29). The most blog-shaped of the machine group and the best starting point if you are new to the format.

Cross stitch blogs

Cross stitch sits adjacent to embroidery and the audiences overlap enough that most people looking for one will read the other.

Caterpillar Cross Stitch (caterpillarcrossstitch.com, DR 32). Modern kits, patterns and needle minders, with a blog attached.

The Fresh Cross Stitch (thefreshcrossstitch.com, DR 32). PDF patterns and a blog section, firmly on the contemporary side of the craft.

Modern Folk Embroidery (modernfolkembroidery.com, DR 25). Cross stitch supplies drawn from historical folk patterns, and the writing carries that research.

Peacock & Fig (peacockandfig.com, DR 22). Long-running, and now broader than cross stitch alone.

Stitch Palettes (stitchpalettes.com, DR 25) is the outlier: it is built around matching thread colour combinations, which is a narrow job done properly.

Crewel, goldwork and kits

Crewel Ghoul (crewelghoul.com, DR 40). Hand embroidery and needlecraft with a distinctly gothic direction, and one of the more genuinely personal blogs in the set.

The Crewel Work Company (crewelwork.com, DR 29). Crewel kits and instruction from a specialist, with a news section that reads as a blog.

Paraffle Embroidery (paraffle.com, DR 27). Scotland based, contemporary kits and DIY patterns, with a long beginner guide.

Stitched Stories (stitchedstories.com, DR 39) and The Fabled Thread (thefabledthread.com, DR 31) both sell kits and both maintain a real blog alongside, which is more than most kit shops manage.

The full list with ratings

Sorted by Domain Rating, highest first. If you are here because you want a link from one of these rather than a good read, the ratings are the column to look at. Every row was checked on 10 September 2026.

• needlenthread.com DR 57, hand
• embroidery.rocksea.org DR 52, hand
• designsbyjuju.com DR 49, machine
• embroiderylegacy.com DR 48, machine
• swpea.com DR 46, machine
• allstitch.com DR 41, machine and supplies
• crewelghoul.com DR 40, hand and crewel
• stitchedstories.com DR 39, kits
• caterpillarcrossstitch.com DR 32, cross stitch
• thefreshcrossstitch.com DR 32, cross stitch
• thefabledthread.com DR 31, kits
• machineembroiderygeek.com DR 29, machine
• crewelwork.com DR 29, crewel
• jessicalongembroidery.com DR 28, hand
• paraffle.com DR 27, kits and patterns
• sarahhomfray.com DR 26, hand technique
• modernfolkembroidery.com DR 25, cross stitch
• stitchpalettes.com DR 25, thread colour
• hannahhandmakes.com DR 24, hand
• peacockandfig.com DR 22, cross stitch
• pumora.com DR 21, hand
• mindfulmantraembroidery.com DR 20, hand
• pamashdesigns.com DR 20, hand
• elaraembroidery.com DR 9, hand
• abideembroidery.com DR 7, hand
• daniellebalfoort.com DR 3.5, hand

What the ratings actually mean

Domain Rating is a 0 to 100 estimate of how many other websites link to a domain, weighted by how strong those sites are. It says nothing about whether the embroidery is any good, and it is a different measure from Domain Authority, which some tools report instead.

It is included here for one reason: it separates a blog with a readership from a blog without one, and no other embroidery roundup gives you that. The spread in this list is wide, from 57 down to 3.5, and the median is 28.5. Eight of the 26 sit at DR 24 or below, which in practice means a site that a few dozen people link to rather than a few thousand.

That is not a criticism of those eight. Small sites are often where the interesting writing is, because the author is doing it for its own sake. It is simply information you were not being given.

If you want to work with these blogs

Brands, kit makers and craft shops all end up wanting a mention on a list like this one, and most go about it badly. Two things are worth knowing before you send anything.

The first is that the reply rate on cold outreach is low everywhere. Across MentionAgent's own outreach to publishers of every kind we get a human reply from about 6% of the people we contact. Craft bloggers in particular receive a steady stream of identical emails offering them a free product, and the ones we see answer are the ones that reference something the author actually wrote.

The second is that the window is short. Of the replies we do receive, 78% arrive within 24 hours of the first send, and the median is about two and a half hours. A pitch that has been silent for a week is almost never going to turn around, so plan on volume and a good first message rather than on persistence.

Sending the same message to all 26 is the fastest way to be ignored, so the templates we actually use are written to be edited per site. If you are doing this at any scale, our guides to blogger outreach tools and the guest post pitch template we actually send cover the mechanics. If you would rather it ran without you, that is what our AI outreach workflow does.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best embroidery blog to follow?

For hand embroidery, NeedlenThread by Mary Corbet is still the reference. It is the oldest and by some distance the strongest site in this list at Domain Rating 57, and its stitch library and tool reviews are the ones other blogs cite. Sarah's Hand Embroidery at embroidery.rocksea.org is the other long-running library, at DR 52. If you want newer voices instead, Pumora, Mindful Mantra and Crewel Ghoul all publish regularly and sit under DR 40.

Are these embroidery blogs still active?

Every site in this list was loaded on 10 September 2026 and all 26 returned an HTTP 200. That confirms the site is live; it does not confirm the author posted this month. Twenty-three of the 26 have a separate blog section that also loaded. The other three, NeedlenThread, Sarah Homfray and Stitch Palettes, publish from the site root or from a differently named section rather than a /blog path.

What is the difference between hand and machine embroidery blogs?

They are separate worlds with very little overlap in readership. Hand embroidery blogs cover stitches, threads, hoops and slow project work. Machine embroidery blogs cover digitising files, hooping and stabilisers, and the writing is closer to software documentation. Machine Embroidery Geek, Designs By JuJu, Sweet Pea Australia and Embroidery Legacy are the machine side of this list; most of the rest are hand.

How do you pitch an embroidery blog for a guest post or collaboration?

Read the last three posts and reference one specifically, because craft bloggers get a high volume of generic pitches and answer almost none of them. Say plainly what you are offering and what you want. Across our own outreach to publishers of all kinds we see about a 6% reply rate, and 78% of the replies that do come back arrive within 24 hours, so a pitch that has been quiet for a week is very unlikely to turn around.

Why does this list show Domain Rating?

Because most embroidery blog roundups sort by the author's taste and give you no way to tell a site with a readership from a site that has been dormant for three years. Domain Rating is a rough measure of how many other sites link to a domain, on a 0 to 100 scale. It is not a quality score and a low number does not mean a bad blog; several of the most interesting sites here sit under DR 25. It does tell you which of these are established and which are new.

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