Ingrid in her shop, Wool 'n Things, with some of her stitched designs.

Ingrid Berning is the owner and designer of Berion Designs. Her love of creative needlework started when she had to embroider a wall hanging for the end of year Home Economics exam in her final school year. The result was a satin stitched peacock which she eventually gave to her brother as a wedding gift.

Since then she has worked as a draughtsman in the disciplines of architecture, geology, mine surveying and electrical engineering, graphics design as well as a secretary. In her spare time she tried her hand at various crafts – pottery, wood carving, knitting, crochet, embroidery, photography, quilting, reverse quilting and even mosaics – but her main love has always been the actual design work entailed in whatever she has created.

In 1998, while on holiday in the British Isles, Ingrid found an abundance of needlework kits relating to the various aspects of the different regions in the area and realised that nothing like that was available in Namibia. She started dreaming about designs depicting Namibian motifs but had no way to practically realise those dreams.

 A few years later her dreams became reality when she was granted first option to purchase an existing craft shop in her (then) home town of Swakopmund, Namibia. Within a couple of years she turned the shop back into its original format of a wool and embroidery business, renamed it Wool ‘n Things, and used it as the home for her own designs. Since then she has produced numerous counted cross stitch kits depicting Namibian animals, birds, historical buildings, landscapes and people.

Her kits were marketed solely from the shop and were snapped up by both Namibian needlewomen and tourists holidaying in Swakopmund from all over the world.  Having sold her shop (now named Heidi’s Craft Studio), she and her son John, relocated to Johannesburg at the end of 2006 where she gradually started to market her designs locally.

Since settling in Johannesburg, she has continued designing and has added a variety of miscellaneous cross-stitch charts to her range.  These include a sampler of “The Lord’s Prayer” in Afrikaans, English and German, a Black-work owl and a number of abstract designs which can be used for cushions, bags or wall hangings.

Upcoming projects include the Royal Hotel in Pilgrim’s Rest and a scenic view of Table Mountain, amongst others. She plans to have some of these designs available in chart form before Christmas 2009.

Here’s hoping you will enjoy stitching her designs as much as she has enjoyed designing them!