Designer Spotlight: Black Waltz Stitching

Black Waltz Stitching is a great Etsy shop to visit for your last-minute Halloween cross stitch needs, but they have lots of other cute stuff, too. Let’s take a virtual trip to this New York based shop to see all the goodies they have in store.

You’ll find lots of adorable little ghosts, capybaras, dragons and other cute little creatures here, in Halloween and more general designs.

What caught my eye when looking at this shop was the tarot card inspired designs, which include a capy, frog and sloth, the gamer, the stitcher, the reader, lovers (which are ghosts) and the trick and the treat, which would be super cute for Halloween.

You can also get a bundle of these patterns as shown here with the reader, the stitcher and the gamer, all of which are relevant to my household. The patterns are sized slightly differently: the gamer is 57 by 63 stitches, while the stitcher and the reader are both 61 by 63. The samples were worked on 16 count fabric and displayed in faux-wood frames. The gamer and the stitcher each use 14 colors, while the reader uses 16. All of them only use full cross stitches.

There are also some super cute mini patterns that can be worked on plastic canvas and used as keychains or pins, as well as a set of bookmarks to stitch. These are great options for people who are new to stitching and want to start with a really small project that can be done quickly and used right away.

And while we’re focused on cross stitching here, the shop also has some stickers related to some of the cross stitch designs (again heavy on the ghosts) if you like to put stickers on everything.

Check out all the items on offer at the Black Waltz Stitching Etsy shop and, as of this writing, use the code WALTZ15 to get 15 percent off when you buy three or more patterns at once.

[Photo: Black Waltz Stitching]

Siren Stitchworks has cross stitch patterns that feel like old samplers (and some of them are in fact historical reproductions) even when they are modern designs. They have patriotic patterns, biscornus, pop culture patterns and more so let’s take a look.

One of the projects that caught my eye was the Mexican menagerie, a set of five Mexican folk art inspired creatures. There’s a bird, horses, dragons, alligators and cats on these designs, which you can make into tiny pillow or ornaments.

The pattern notes don’t say how many colors are used but it doesn’t look like any of them have more than five colors. It does note the smallest pattern is 59 by 59 stitches, and the largest is 82 by 68 stitches. They also only use full cross stitches.

The category with the largest number of entries (which is still only 12 as of this writing; this is a small shop) is called ornaments and smalls. It includes this menagerie and another Mexican animal collection, as well as traditional looking patterns with a twist, such as a little pattern with Yule goats, a needlebook cover that looks like a tombstone and alphabet samplers that include Greek, Latin and Hebrew.

There are also a bunch of samplers, divided into monochrome, traditional and reproduction samplers. There are some fun ones in the monochrome department, including a Titanic sampler and an aloha design with a pineapple motif. Traditional samplers include some patriotic designs (and a gorgeous folk art resist fist), as well as a really fat cat.

And the reproduction samplers include fun fonts, florals and birds like you’d expect from old sampler designs.

In addition you’ll find a few pop culture designs (mostly Game of Thrones inspired samplers for different houses), biscornus include a couple Chinese zodiac designs, and a few needle minders for sale.

Check out all the fun designs at Siren Stitchworks on Etsy.

[Photo: Siren Stitchworks]

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