Cross Stitch Creatures from the Sea

Last fall I came across this cross stitch pattern for a sea turtle and I talked myself out of sharing it right away because tropical animals don’t feel like a “fall” thing, but now that it’s summer again, let’s take a look at some cross stitch patterns for creatures that live in or around the sea.

This sea turtle design from Witch Wolf Web Creations is literally just a chart with no grid to help you count stitches or suggested colors, but I would print it out and add a grid to make it easier to stitch. You can work it in many colors as shown, or there’s also a black and white version so you could just do it in a single color.

Stitch up some fish or a seahorse with this bundle of four tropical fish cross stitch patterns from LaSelva Design. It includes a clownfish, seahorse, moorish idol and blue tang, all of which vary in size and colors used, but they’re all really cute.

Or you can stitch a tank’s worth of tropical fish with this project from SamXstitch. There are 22 fish in all on this project, which measures 153 by 153 stitches. On 14 count fabric that’s 10.93 inches or 27.75 cm. It uses 15 colors.

I also love the jewel-toned fishies on this project from Velvet Pony Design. This one has seven fish and a seahorse and measures 113 by 140 stitches. That’s just over 8 by 10 inches or 20.5 by 25.4 cm on 14 count fabric, though you can make it smaller with a higher fabric count. It calls for 24 colors.

This vintage design from Past Pattern Palooza Co has a whole school of little fish. The design is 120 by 260 stitches and uses 30 colors. It measures 8.57 by 18.57 inches (21.7 by 47.2 cm) on 14 count fabric. The pattern notes say there are 69 designs in total, an individual fish range from 1.5 to 3 inches, or 4.5 to 8 cm.

You can stitch up a whole tropical world complete with coral using this design from Easy Stitching Outlet (though I don’t think this one is particularly easy). At 219 by 95 stitches, on 14 count fabric it will come out to 15.6 by 6.8 inches, or 39.73 by 17.24 cm.

Lifted Spirit Patterns is a cross stitch Etsy shop based in Australia that specializes in vintage travel poster style cross stitch patterns, but has a lot of other fun stuff, too. Let’s check it out!

By far the biggest category of designs here is travel posters, including US states, cities around the world and some general country poster style cross stitch patterns. So as not to play favorites, I thought I’d share the Australia poster, which features Uluru. The palette of yellows, oranges and greens is a lot of fun, and in all it uses 13 colors.

The design is 117 by 158 stitches, which comes out to 8.4 by 11.3 inches, or 21.2 by 28.7 cm on 14 count fabric. You can of course make it smaller by using a higher count fabric if you like, but I think that’s a good size for a poster style design.

There are also quite a lot of cat and dog cross stitch patterns, with many different breeds shown and space for the dog or cat’s name at the bottom. Most of these are dogs but there are a handful of cats, too.

Another large category is Christian cross stitch, which includes bible quotes and prayers along with some images without words.

The decorative cross stitch section includes some funny designs, like a hippo playing the drums, as well as some animal faces, birds and a set of colorful mushroom hoops, to name a few.

Other sections include kids cross stitch, mom life, wedding patterns, quotes and poetry.

You’ll also find a great collection of cross stitch alphabets of all sorts. There are script fonts, a Disney inspired font, varsity block letters and letters that look like candy canes, ice cream and jelly beans, to name a few. There’s also a great collection of small cross stitch fonts, perfect for adding personalization to any cross stitch pattern.

Check out all their fun designs at Lifted Spirit Patterns.

[Photo: Lifted Spirit Patterns]

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