Designer Spotlight: Climbing Goat Designs

Climbing Goat Designs is a UK based Etsy shop that seems like it has a little something for everyone. There are tons of Christmas patterns, and also space geek stuff. Temperature projects and cross stitch patterns devoted to lost pets. Mythical creatures and stand up paddleboarding. And that’s just what I saw on the first page.

When I first looked at this storefront before I sat down to write about it, I noted that I liked the tartan hearts design. And I still do. This set of 9 hearts features stitched versions of classic tartan designs: Black Watch, Thomson Camel, MacQueen, Ramsay Blue, MacLeod, Fraser Hunting Ancient, Royal Stewart, Hamilton Grey and MacKenzie Modern.

Stitch the whole sampler or use an individual heart to decorate a card or another project. The whole piece is 101 by 100 stitches and uses 31 different colors. That comes out to 7.2 by 7.1 inches or 18.3 by 18.1 cm. If you want to stitch an individual heart, each larger heart is 31 by 28 stitches, which makes them around 2 inches/5 cm.

By far the largest category is Christmas patterns, which range from decorated musical notes to dragons to Christmas cats, trees made out of various things (like knitting supplies, art materials or planets) as well as some more traditional designs.

Other large categories include astronomy and space, fantasy and rainbows, music, sports and vehicles and animals at home, which gives you a sense of the range of designs. Another big one is cats, dogs, pets and paws, which includes memorial designs and more general pet patterns.

The page also has a great variety of temperature cross stitch patterns, including space themed projects, hearts and other little icons. They have a variety of stitchalongs including penguins, snowflakes, Hubble telescope images and an animal tree of life.

And even all that doesn’t cover everything they offer (alphabets! custom birth announcements! zodiac designs!) so head to Climbing Goat Designs on Etsy to check it all out.

[Photo: Climbing Goat Designs]

I was recently approached by Alyssa, the cross stitcher behind the Etsy shop Stitchonomy, to take a look at her cross stitch pattern subscription club, known as The Pattern Club.

I took a look around and there’s a lot of cute stuff and fun options you’ll want to check out, especially if you love themed patterns that are small, easy to stitch and fun to combine.

The Pattern Club combines cross stitching with a social network. When you open the site you’ll see a news feed and have the ability to share updates much like you would on Facebook. You can see who is online, have buddies and post your own updates and photos. The community aspect is a little sparse right now but that should only grow.

The stitch along hub is the place to find the most recent patterns and information on the current stitchalong. As of this writing the Book Lover’s stitchalong was happening, with little designs like Peter Rabbit, a skull for Hamlet and keys for Jane Eyre as well as authors including Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen.

Other pattern collections include European designs, Halloween, ocean life, an allotment garden and more. Alyssa tells me there’s a new theme every month that either she picks or members in the community suggest. You can stitch just the patterns you want or put them together to make a larger collage.

The Stitchanomini vault gives you access to all of the previous patterns, and new patterns are released daily through the stitchalong. You can download individual patterns (most of them are 19 by 19 stitches) as PDFs or Pattern Keeper files. The PDFs include a color and black and white chart as well as a floss list.

Another cool thing you can do is build your own pattern collages from all of the squares that have been released. The collage configurator allows you to add patterns of your choosing to a grid ranging from 2×2 patterns up to 4×4. You can scroll through all the current patterns or search by theme and size to make a project that suits your needs. (Above is an example I made kind of at random but you get the idea.)

If you want to check it out, you can grab a three-day free trial and see all the pattern options. Membership is $7.99 a month, or if you pay for a year at a time you’ll get two months free. In addition to the patterns in the club, members receive discounts on patterns and supplies purchased through the shop within the club. Annual members get access to three paid/retired stitchalongs and lifetime members receive all retired patterns.

If you check it out I’d love to hear what you think!

Have you read?