Behind the Finish: Cowtown Needlepoint
Chatting with Catherine + Molly
This week’s Behind the Finish features Catherine and Molly of Cowtown Needlepoint. Based in Fort Worth, TX, they offer finishing services for ornaments, signs, flats for acrylics, coasters, and acrylic foot stand ups, plus online classes, and in-person classes.
Instagram Live Recording
Last night, we chatted on Instagram Live and answered some reader questions. I personally love hearing from other finishers about their techniques. You can watch this on Instagram here or click to view the video below.
Full Interview
Amanda: Tell us a little bit about you both, when did you both start stitching?
Catherine: I grew up in Fort Wayne, IN, but have lived in Fort Worth, TX for the past 12 years. After graduating from TCU, I taught elementary school for 7 years. I’m married to a fellow horned frog, and we have one son (plus our fur baby). I started needlepointing about 5 years ago. I took a beginners class at The French Knot here in Fort Worth, and I’ve loved stitching ever since. I enjoy learning new skills and stitching projects for family and friends.
Molly: I moved to Fort Worth, TX to attend TCU after living in Grand Rapids, Michigan and San Diego, California. After college I worked as a pediatric nurse for 6 years before deciding to stay home with our son. I’ve always had a love for crafting and grew up sewing, knitting and crocheting. Catherine introduced me to Needlepoint a couple years ago, and I immediately was hooked.
How did you meet?
We met twelve years ago at TCU! We were Thetas together!
Tell us a little bit about the founding of Cowtown? When did you get together and decide you wanted to start offering finishing commercially?
During one of our first playdates with our sons we realized we both were longing for a creative outlet and a way to make money from home. Catherine shared her vision of creating a needlepoint finishing business and our playdates quickly became filled with dreams of creating a business together. Catherine’s attention to detail and my background sewing complemented each other well as we learned and practiced finishing our own work. A friend trusted us with a stash of her own work, and we used it to nail down our techniques. We ended up showing some of our work to a LNS who hired us to finish some products for them. We’ve been working with them ever since. We started offering finishing independently 8 months ago and have loved it!
How do you organize the business? Do you both take on the same types of finishes or do you each specialize in specific finishes?
We both take on the same types of finishes, and we divide the work 50/50. We have spent a lot of time perfecting our finishing techniques and making sure our finishes are consistent between our work. We are constantly learning from one another and always striving to produce the highest quality finishes.
What is on your list of finishes you want to try this year?
This year we’re excited to add acrylic foot stand ups for our clients. We’re also planning on making the switch to in-house embroidery. We’ve loved working with our embroiderer but are looking to streamline our processes this year.
Personally we’re excited to play around a little bit more with sewing. Eventually we would love to be able to offer pillows and stockings.
I saw that you teased starting to offer finishing resources too, that’s so cool! What sparked that for you?
As finishers, we want to help as many people as possible, but we recognize that we are limited in how many projects we can take at a time. We want everyone to have access to quality finishing, so we thought we should start teaching others our finishing techniques. We teach a monthly class at The French Knot here in Fort Worth, but we wanted to reach people that couldn’t necessarily travel to us. That’s when we decided to create our online finishing course! Our course consists of materials lists with links, step-by-step instructions, and detailed visuals. On top of that, people are able to reach out to us anytime if they have questions! We are always here to help people on their finishing journeys.
To learn more about our online course, visit here.
Do you have any tips or advice for people who are interested in starting their finishing journey or expanding their finishing abilities?
We truly believe anyone can learn how to self finish if they have the resources and patience with themselves to learn. Trust the process and know that like anything, it is a skill that takes time to perfect.
We’ve found the needlepoint community to be so kind and encouraging! Don't be afraid to reach out to us or anyone else with questions! We love to share what we’ve learned!
Where do you think Cowtown is headed next?
We have a lot of exciting plans for Cowtown Needlepoint in the future! We are looking forward to releasing all of our finishing guides this year! Additionally, we will be adding some other shapes to our in-person finishing classes. We also have some canvas designs in the works, and we can’t wait to share them with everyone!
Where can people learn more about Cowtown and your finishing services?
For more information check out the new website cowtownneedlepoint.com or our Instagram @cowtownneedlepoint. Feel free to email us at cowtownneedlepoint@gmail.com.
Note: Cowtown is re-opening for finishing services in April and their slots fill quickly.
Behind the Finish is a project dedicated to the celebration of inspiring finishes and the people behind them. View the archive here.
If you know of someone who would make a great feature, please email finishingfairy@gmail.com or message me here on Substack.