Designer Spotlight: Box and Fox

When I look at the designs of Box and Fox on Etsy, the first words that come to mind are lush and floral.

This designer has more than 1,000 (1,000!) patterns on their page, so I certainly didn’t look at all of them, but I still stand by that assessment of their work and almost no matter where you look in their pattern categories you will find the same thing.

I think the word lush applies to the fullness of the designs and the color choices used. I feel like there’s more jewel tones and darker, more saturated colors than you often see in cross stitch designs. There are pastels and even monochromatic designs, too, but there’s just something about these — they’re pretty, colorful, modern designs (with some more vintage designs thrown in, too) that look like they’d be a lot of fun to stitch.

And I mention floral because when I visited there were a lot of floral designs on the front page, but there’s also just a lot of flowers and plants in these designs. You’ll find them with cats. And with (or on) butterflies. In large scale projects and minis. A lot of the vintage designs are florals, too.

There are a few seasonal designs for the new year (including a few Chinese zodiac animals), Valentine’s Day and Christmas. There are also several designs related to astrological signs (including a set with the signs as cats, which are super cute).

It was really hard for me to pick the pattern I wanted to share in a photo, which I guess is a good sign that there’s a lot of great stuff there! But I came back to this floral design that looks like sunflowers and echinacea or coneflower plants. It’s not as bold in color as some of the other ones but I still really like it!

This design is 120 by 140 stitches and uses 8 colors. It’s 8.5 by 10 inches (or 21.7 by 25.4 cm) when stitched on 14 count fabric.

[Photo: Box and Fox]

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Fox Cross Stitch Patterns

Cross stitch project bags aren’t a necessity, but if you’re traveling with a work-in-progress, or just want to keep your fabric, floss and notions clean and corralled away from kids or pets, the right project bag makes a real difference.

Project bags are not a necessity when it comes to cross stitch, or any other craft. But if you’re traveling with your cross stitch, or you want to keep things clean/organized/away from kids or pets, using project bags is a great idea.

Of course any kind of bag can be a project bag, from a zip top bag to a reusable shopping bag. I like to use the plastic zipper bags that sheets come in as project bags, especially for longer term storage of projects in hibernation because it keeps them clean and dust free but also allows me to see what’s in there.

Sirious Stitches has a very comprehensive post covering various options that they and other people in their community use for project bags and storage.

Probably the best thing about it is as it goes through the different kinds of bags there are links to tutorials if you want to make your own (because we’re mostly all multi-crafters, right?) and also places that you can buy bags if you’d rather go that route. You’ll find projects for a clear vinyl pencil pouch perfect for storing bobbined thread, large square pouches, vinyl square pouches, flat bottom pouches with zippers, folio cases with large pockets, bobbin pockets and multi-fold cases.

The point of all that research was that Siri wanted a new project bag, so you can click through to see not only all of these project options but what they ultimately made and how it’s working. It’s a really lovely project bag that makes me a little jealous on behalf of my projects that mostly just sit on my desk (or in a plastic shopping bag, ugh) while I’m working on them.

Do you have a favorite project bag? I’d love to hear about it. And be sure to check out the post at Sirious Stitches.

[Photo: Sirious Stiches]

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