Book Review: Cross Stitch Celebrations Bundle of Joy!

Many crafters like to use their skills to make gifts for new babies, and when it comes to cross stitch, making a stitched birth announcement is a classic.

These projects often include the baby’s name along with information like date of birth and sometimes time of birth, weight and height. There’s often a cute animal or some other design included.

They’re very personal projects, and there’s a lot to think about if you’re making one for your little one or a baby you know. Mollie Johanson covers the basics of designing, planning and stitching cross stitch baby announcements, with lots of options for you to choose from, in her book Cross Stitch Celebrations: Bundle of Joy!

The beginning of the book covers the basics of cross stitch and then goes into a lot of detail about how you might approach designing your own cross stitch birth announcement. It shows how to sketch out your design on paper so you know how everything fits together and how big it will be before you start stitching. There are also tips on choosing colors, placement of designs and how to change the patterns shown in the book.

After these instructions you’ll find more than 20 options for your project, including baby animals like bears, bunnies, elephants and owls; border patterns such as leaves, scallops, gingham and chevrons; and little motifs you can sprinkle into your projects like hearts, rainbows and paw prints.

Then there are four alphabets to choose from, including tips on placement and spacing.

Finally you’ll find a design gallery with finished projects and instructions on how to make them. The options are a framed announcement, a hoop that’s an animal and the baby’s name, and an announcement attached to a canvas with no frame (the one shown is for twins, which is nice to see as an option if you aren’t sure how to do that but need it).

Each pattern is shown with the colors she used and has a chart as well as written instructions and a photo of the finished design. These are all just jumping off points for stitchers to make their own projects for the little ones in their lives.

Cross Stitch Celebrations: Bundle of Joy! is full of cute ideas for stitchers of all skill levels to make pretty birth announcements and other cross stitch projects for baby.

About the book: 96 pages, paperback. Published 2022 by Walter Foster Publishing. Suggested retail price $19.99.

Works by ABC sells both PDFs and paper patterns of many of its designs, which include temperature projects, intricate designs that look like lace, floral designs and more.

The patterns are only organized by PDF or paper, so you’ll just have to scroll through to see all the options.

There are fractal designs, holiday projects (including Hanukkah), mandalas, snowflakes, seasonal patterns, biscornu and more. (Learn more about biscornu here.)

The lace inspired designs are the ones that really caught my eye, so let’s take a closer look at one of those. This one is just called exquisite lace, and that’s a totally valid name because that is what it is.

This single color design is all full cross stitches, but because of the size and level of detail I’d still say it is best for intermediate to advanced cross stitchers. The design is 205 by 331 stitches and it is shown worked on 36 count linen stitched over two threads. The 36 count is equivalent to 18 count Aida, so that makes the finished project 11.4 by 18.4 inches, or 28.9 by 46.7 cm.

It’s really pretty on the gray fabric shown but would be great with any dark color like blue, green or black as well.

There are actually four more listings in the paper pattern section than there are in the PDF section, but I assume for the most part any pattern that you can get in one format you can get in the other. Patterns that are printed appear to be $2 more expensive (based on the few that I checked) and there is a charge for shipping but it’s nice to have the option if you like a printed pattern and don’t have an easy way to print at home.

Check out all the available patterns in print and digital form at Works by ABC. And be sure to let me know if you know of a designer who should be in the spotlight!

[Photo: Works by ABC]

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