About Mystery, She Sewed

I have two lifelong loves: machine embroidery and a good mystery. For years they lived politely side by side. By day I helped embroiderers get machines out of boxes and into use. By night I disappeared into detective stories, quietly convinced I could crack the case a chapter before the detective did.

Then one day, while writing yet another set of stitching instructions, it struck me. Instead of giving people instructions, I could give them clues.

Mystery, She Sewed is the result. Each case is a four-week embroidery adventure where the story arrives in weekly instalments, the evidence arrives as original machine embroidery designs, and the solving happens in your hoop. You leave having learned a thing or two about embroidery without ever sitting through a lesson.

I am Mandy Chamberlin, a self-confessed machine embroidery addict from Auckland, New Zealand. Embroidery is not just my hobby, it is my whole working week:

• I digitise embroidery designs by hand for embroiderers all over the world through my business, Veronica and Me Designs.
• I run a custom embroidery studio, stitching everything from company uniforms to one very special teddy bear jacket, through Veronica and Me Embroidery.
• I sell and support Brother and Halo embroidery machines, with real local training and backup, at EmbroideryMachines.co.nz.
• I teach workshops and one-on-one sessions through Learn With Mandy.

Along the way I have stitched thousands of projects, and in July 2017 I founded NZ Machine Embroidery Addicts, a free community where embroiderers share, learn and cheer each other on daily. Everything I do lives under one roof at mandychamberlin.com. Same person, same machines, same care.

And yes, both Veronica and Me businesses are named after my first daughter, Veronica, who is herself named after a certain teenage detective from Neptune, California. The clues were always there.