Cross Stitch Spotlight: MIYA Stitch

If you’re a fan of gnomes, fandoms, Halloween and all around cute cross stitch patterns, you’re going to want to check out MIYA Stitch. With more than 470 patterns as of this writing, there’s a lot of fun stuff to choose from in this Ukraine based shop for people with all sorts of favorite styles and subjects.

The largest category in this shop is gnomes, so let’s start there. Many of these are seasonal, such as fall, Halloween, Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day and other holidays and season.

Because the shop is Ukrainian I can’t resist sharing the Ukrainian gnomes, done up in yellow and gold and decorate with Ukrainian flags and sunflowers. The design is 114 by 76 stitches, which comes out to about 8.2 by 5.5 inches, or 21 by 14 cm, on 14 count fabric. This design uses 12 colors and blends.

Coming in just behind gnomes, with more than 80 patterns, is the “fandom” category, which includes everything from Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings to Anne of Green Gables and Super Mario. And that’s just on the first screen. You’ll also find characters from Good Omens, the Little Prince, Star Wars and more.

There’s also quite a lot of Halloween cross stitch patterns, which trend more to cute than creepy. There’s a goose in a pumpkin, a frog doing witchcraft, magical ghosts, potion bottles and more.

There are a lot of landscapes, animals (in particular cats), designs with female characters, houses, Christmas designs and more. In the “simple” section you’ll find a script alphabet, some cute coffee cups and some personalizable designs.

One of my favorite collections is the steampunk designs, which include steampunk-inspired designs of things like a clock, coffee grinder, motorcycle and gramophone. Of course my favorite of those is the steampunk sewing machine.

There’s even more fun stuff I haven’t mentioned like Christmas patterns, seascapes and more. Head to MIYA Stitch on Etsy to check out all the fun designs.

[Photo: MIYA Stitch]

I don’t usually cross stitch text or add words to my cross stitch projects. Sometimes I will sign things using basic block lettering worked in backstitch (luckily my initials are pretty easy to stitch), but if you give your cross stitch as a gift or otherwise want to personalize it, adding text is a great way to go.

But if a project didn’t already come with text, and you don’t want to draw your own, you’ll need a good cross stitch font that you can use for your project.

I like collecting fonts that are easy to read and to stitch and that would be good for lots of different uses.

For example I really like this bold alphabet font from Cross Stitch with Art, which has both capital and lowercase letters as well as numbers if you need them for dates or other information on your design. The capital letters are an inch/2.5 cm/14 stitches tall, which makes it easy to figure out how much space you need to leave for them. It’s a nice, basic, readable serif font you can use for lots of project.

If you want a script font that’s still really readable, check out Magic Calligraphy from Soft Pattern Designs. This hand drawn font has upper case letters around 28 stitches tall, with lower case letters mostly being around 20 stitches (though the ones that go up or down a lot like f, p and y are bigger). The numbers also vary a bit in size but range from 25 to 29 stitches.

Sometimes you just want a classic font that looks like sports lettering, and in that case you’re going to need Varsity, an all caps font from Stitch Mod. This one has letters that are 21 stitches tall, and it includes capital letters and numbers. But there are definitely times this one would come in handy!

Another sometimes useful and really cute font is this alphabet block letters alphabet from Stitch Junction. These letters are all upper case and look like classic building blocks, and there are also numbers available. This one would be perfect for a birth announcement project or some other cross stitch for the baby’s room.

And if that’s not enough for you, check out this post with 85 free cross stitch fonts for you to try!

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