Dark Cross Stitch for Cthulhu Fans

March 28, 2026 by Sarah White

I have a random collection of links to cross stitch websites that I sometimes look through when I’m looking for things to share with you. I’ve been hitting them up more often lately because I’m trying to share more free cross stitch patterns, and just awesome things that you might not find on Etsy (much as we love Etsy!).

It was during one of those wanders that I found this spectacular Cthulhu Awakens cross stitch pattern from The World in Stitches.

In case you’re not up on the lore, Cthulhu is a powerful and ancient cosmic entity invented by H.P. Lovecraft and first introduced in the short story “The Call of Cthulhu” in 1928. He’s described as a monster with a sort of human like shape but an octopus-like head, a scaly body with claws and wings. He’s described as kind of a octopus, dragon, human like form, but also very tall.

The octopus-like face is the feature most depictions of Cthulhu focus on, and so it is here, too, though that’s his full body in the thrones on the sides.

There’s a lot going on here, from tentacles rising from the depths (he hibernates in an underwater city) to skulls and pentagrams and maybe a worshiper at the bottom with holy books and candles. The cross stitch design is adapted from original art by Brandon Wilhelm.

This would be a great project to stitch for an H.P. Lovecraft fan or anyone into D&D games that use the Cthulhu mythos.

The pattern is 105 by 151 stitches, which comes out to 7.5 by 10.8 inches, or 19.5 by 27.4 cm on 14 count fabric (the pattern gives sizing for other counts if you want to make it smaller). It uses 10 colors.

If this is something you’d love to have in your game room or to make as a gift for your favorite geek, you can grab the free chart from The World in Stitches.

[Photo: The World in Stitches]

Have you read?

Easy Ways to Fancy Up Your Biscornu

The cross stitcher behind the blog Sirious Stitches is quite into biscornu.

If you’re not, a quick primer: biscornu are three-dimensional cross-stitched objects with eight points, often with an indention in the middle that makes them look a bit like doughnuts without the hole. They can be just about any size and subject you can think of. They’re often used as pincushions but can also be seasonal decor or just decoration for any time of year.

I’ve got a collection of biscornu cross stitch patterns here.

Once you’ve stitched one or several (they are a little addicting) you might wonder what you can add to them to make them even more extra.

It very much depends on the design of your biscornu and the look you are going for, but Sirious Stitches has a great post all about some of the options you might consider.

I don’t want to give you the whole list because you need to go visit and see all of their great biscornu they’ve stitched, but one really easy thing that you can do with a lot of designs is take advantage of that center indent by adding a button, beads, silk flower or another embellishment.

This is great to do just with a basic button from your stash that coordinates with the design and colors of the cross stitching, but it’s extra fun if you have a button that’s on theme, such as a leaf for a fall biscornu or a flower shaped button for a floral design. Add a jingle bell to a Christmas pattern, or a charm if you don’t have a button that coordinates.

Just this one idea is sure to get you thinking about ways to embellish biscornu (not to mention other cross stitch projects) but head over to Sirious Stitches to see all of their ideas for embellishing biscornu to make these already fun projects even more fun.

Have you ever made biscornu? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Sirious Stitches]