Designer Spotlight: Bombastitch

If you like your cross stitch patterns full of pop culture references, you’re going to want to pay a visit to Bombastitch’s Etsy shop. This shop based in Indiana specializes in patterns pulled from TV and movies, and with a side of snark to boot.

What’s not to love?

Since I mention it, let’s take a look at the movie/TV section, which has everything from the Eye of Sauron to the Blues Brothers. Star Wars, Dexter and The Princess Bride, to name a few.

And since it’s almost Valentine’s Day as I write this, let’s look at that Princess Bride pattern, which says “Wuv, Twoo Wuv” in honor of the priest with the weird accent who “marries” Buttercup and Humperdink. The pattern is worked in three colors and measures 63 by 60 stitches. That’s about 4.5 by 4.25 inches on 14 count fabric, or 11.4 by 10.8 cm.

There’s also a bunch of stitched portraits of famous characters, including Steve Martin from “The Jerk,” Walter White from “Breaking Bad” and Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock and David Tennant and the 10th Doctor, to name a few.

You’ll also find a collection of seasonal Godzilla patterns, a bunch of sugar skulls, and some sarcastic word art, including such gems as what’s up chicken butt (with a rooster stitched on as well) and no worry beef curry.

There are a couple of state outlines with the word love in them, but I don’t know if this is a project that’s ongoing or abandoned. If you happen to be from Texas or Indiana, though, you’re in luck.

How about some anatomically correct cross stitch patterns? As of this writing there’s a heart, a set of lungs, a brain, a skull and facial muscles.

And that’s not even everything! But if this hodgepodge of design shoutouts has piqued your interest, check out Bombastitch on Etsy. If you stitch up one of their patterns, I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Bombastitch]

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Designer Spotlight: Stitch Riot Designs

I have never stitched a greeting card, but I kind of like the idea of it. It’s a card and a gift all in one, and hopefully one the recipient will hang onto for years to come.

This collection of easy and colorful greeting card cross stitch patterns from Susan Bates (via Gathered) are a great place to start if you want to stitch your own greeting cards.

These text-based designs cover a lot of card-sending events, such as:

get well soon
happy birthday
thank you
thinking of you
congratulations
anniversary
new home
good luck

The lettering is done in gradients and there are other details like hearts and stars, a house key and a gift, depending on the text. There are full cross stitches and back stitch on all of the cards, and they use 15 colors for the cross stitching and six for the back stitching (and just two colors are used for both, so it’s 19 colors total).

The designs vary a bit in size but the biggest one is 52 by 67 stitches, which comes out to 3.75 by 4.75 inches or 9.5 by 12 cm when worked on 14 count fabric or 28 count evenweave. The text suggests beads are also used in the patterns but there’s no note of them in the key, so go wild and add some beads if you like.

Designs are worked on a price of 6 by 8 inch/15 by 20 cm fabric and then mounted to a card with a colorful baking piece of card stock behind it. This is easy to assemble with whatever cardstock greeting cards you have on hand.

You can get the free charts as a PDF from Gathered.

Have you ever stitched your own greeting cards? I’d love to hear about it, or let me know if these inspire you to try.

[Photo: Susan Bates via Gathered]

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