Kathy Brant, the designer behind the Hobby Santa Collection, joined Atlantic Blue in 2022. Kathy and I met after finding her Scuba Diving Santa online, I was on the hunt for anything Scuba Diving related. We teamed up and launched our first collection together in summer 2022.
I painted her first needlepoint canvas in the mid 1970's. My mother-in-law who stitched asked me to paint her a canvas of Mt. Fuji, I was intrigued with the project. To better understand how to work with the canvas I took a beginner stitching course, and I was hooked. I did canvases for several area stores (there were many more in those days) until I began work full-time as a teacher. While teaching, I did some custom work and lettering for one shop near me; it was on retiring from education that I started painting canvases again. I enjoy working client's ideas for canvases and also personalizing other canvases, by adding a name, changing a color or adding a pet. I still enjoy stitching, but painting takes up most of my needlepoint time.
