Book Review: 100 Mini Cross Stitch Designs

There are a lot of fun, large and challenging cross stitch designs out there, but sometimes you just want something small and simple. Little cross stitch designs are great to use on greeting cards, bookmarks, napkins and other projects, and though they don’t take a long time to stitch they are still a lot of fun.

100 Mini Cross Stitch Designs by Rosemary Drysdale has a wide range of wee designs, including holiday and seasonal designs, natural elements like mushrooms and flowers, objects like school buses and sushi, just to name a few.

The patterns are presented in full color charts that are large and easy to read. Some of the patterns are shown in projects such as a pillow covered with bees and a hive or a set of rockets framed separately to decorate a kid’s room. You can use these ideas as a jumping off point to design your own gift tags, embellished clothing or whatever else you like.

If you love cross stitch but also enjoy the instant gratification of small projects, this book is a must have!

About the book: 160 pages, paperback, 100 patterns. Published in February 2022 by GMC Publications. Suggested retail $24. Buy on Amazon.

Inkspire Studio Shops offers cross stitch patterns as well as tons of different stitch minders, scissor charms and thread organization tools.

We’ll get to all that, but since we’re mostly here for the patterns, let’s start there.

All of the patterns are in one category (called Inkspire Originals if you’re following along). There are a lot of book-themed projects and more of the designs are bookmarks than anything else. You’ll find trope bookmarks, a Reading Rainbow themed design, flowers and a super cute watercolor set bookmark, to name a few.

And while the book themed projects are by far the most numerous, I wanted to share this super cute pile of vintage Pyrex style bowls. I love the colors on this one and it should be easy to stitch because so much of it is blocks (or bowls) of a single color. This one is only available as a printed pattern, but most of them are digital.

It calls for six colors and comes out 5.6 by 6.9 inches, or 14.2 by 17.5 cm when stitched on 14 count fabric.

In addition to the bookmarks and book themed projects you’ll find a few kitchen projects and some Halloween and Christmas designs as well.

But what this shop is really about is needle minders, and there are tons of them, with all kinds of themes ranging from introverted and snarky to animal themes, food and beverages, retro designs and religious and inspiring needle minders.

If you don’t know about needle minders, these are acrylic with magnets. You stick a magnet to the back of your work, add the needle minder to the front of the work, and then it holds your sewing needle when you’re not stitching. No need for piercing your fabric or losing your needle between stitching sessions.

She also makes charms you can attach to your scissors (or use as a stitch marker if you’re a knitter or crocheter), inventory and project trackers and bags large and small to hold works in progress and other supplies. She’s also got a great collection of vintage cross stitch patterns and kits, so check out all the fun goodies at Inkspired Studio Shops.

[Photo: Inkspire Studio Shops]

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