Cross Stitch the National Parks in Tiny Form

I love little cross stitch patterns, but it’s especially fun when a small cross stitch design has a lot of detail going on. That’s the case with this collection of national parks cross stitch patterns from Stitchin Madness.

This isn’t really a pattern, it’s a full-on book with designs for all 63 of the national parks in the United States (which includes the Virgin Islands). Each design is unique and shows a distinctive feature or the park or what the landscape there looks like.

The book includes a full table of contents and numbered pages to make it easy to find the design you want to make.

Each design is 40 by 40 stitches without the park name included, and 40 by 50 stitches if you add the name. They’re designed for 14 count fabric and if you make all of them you’ll use 72 colors, though each individual pattern uses a lot fewer colors than that.

These would be so fun to make as you visit different parks, or make the whole set to frame together if you’re a big travel person who loves the national parks. They’d also be fun as greeting cards or even ornaments for your tree with the year you visited added to it somewhere.

The photo above shows a nice collection of some of the patterns in hoops, but I could see them done in little frames as well. This should give you a taste for what the designs look like and might even include your favorite park (mine is Acadia because I went there on my honeymoon; it isn’t on here but you can see it on the product page.

If you’re ready to stitch the national parks, or even just a handful of them, check out this pattern book from Stitchin Madness on Etsy. I’d love to know which national park is your favorite or what you would stitch up first!

[Photo: Stitchin Madness]

I don’t know when or why I cam across this cross stitch pattern, but it’s been on my list to share for a while and today’s the day.

This design from AllaboutxStitch features a giant, colorful wreath with all sorts of vegetables including eggplant, carrots, corn, tomatoes, cabbage, peppers and onions. There’s an artichoke, some beets, peas and mushrooms, too.

The background of the design is filled with text of different kinds of vegetables, which I assume are all included in the design somewhere (of course you could leave that off and you’ll still have plenty of stitching to do!). There’s so much going on here I think you’d have to stitch it to be able to really take it all in.

There’s even a couple of bees hovering around. The detail on this project is just so fun and I love the highlights on some of the vegetables that make them look just that much more realistic.

The pattern measures 194 by 194 stitches. On 16 count fabric that comes out to a little more than 12 inches or 30.8 cm square.

The pattern listing doesn’t say how many colors are used in the sample, but it’s definitely a lot. Just by the size and the number of colors I would call this an advanced cross stitch pattern, but wouldn’t it be amazing to have for your fall and Thanksgiving decor? I’d plan the whole holiday meal around this thing if I successfully finished it. (Mostly because I’ve never done anything that big and I would want to show it off in any way possible).

You can grab a copy of this pattern from AllaboutxStitch on Etsy. And while you’re over there you can check out their other amazing and colorful fruit and vegetable designs if you want to stitch more produce-inspired decor.

[Photo: AllaboutxStitch]

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