Designer Spotlight: Cotton Clara

This cheerful shop specializes in little, colorful designs, with a bit of a pop culture twist (and more than a few designs that have to do with food). Let’s check out Cotton Clara!

This shop based in the UK sells cross stitch charts, embroidery kits, sewing kits and craft supplies. The cross stitch patterns are all in one category, but there are only about 50 of them, so it doesn’t take too long to scroll through and see what’s on offer.

There are a few bookmarks with a variety of themes, including books, mushrooms and tea, but most of the patterns are small hoops.

I’m not actually a Swiftie but I feel like the I Love Taylor pattern is pretty indicative of the style and use of color you’ll find on the patterns here. The pattern apparently comes with other motifs and lettering so you can profess your love for Christmas or add words related to being born or married in a particular year. (I assume there’s a full alphabet but can’t tell for sure.)

It looks like the pattern uses about 10 colors, which you could of course change if you don’t love the pastel look. There are also other cross stitch sweaters on the page that have different sweater designs and include different motifs if there’s something else you are looking for.

I mentioned food above so I guess it’s time to talk about the food cross stitch patterns. I see choc spread, pickles in a jar, cherries, peanut butter, olives, kimchi, jam and more, which would be cute to stitch up for a friend who loves that kind of food.

You’ll also find some animals, Christmas designs, and a few text based designs as well.

Check out all the cute designs (and more goodies for stitchers) at Cotton Clara.

[Photo: Cotton Clara]

Inkspire Studio Shops offers cross stitch patterns as well as tons of different stitch minders, scissor charms and thread organization tools.

We’ll get to all that, but since we’re mostly here for the patterns, let’s start there.

All of the patterns are in one category (called Inkspire Originals if you’re following along). There are a lot of book-themed projects and more of the designs are bookmarks than anything else. You’ll find trope bookmarks, a Reading Rainbow themed design, flowers and a super cute watercolor set bookmark, to name a few.

And while the book themed projects are by far the most numerous, I wanted to share this super cute pile of vintage Pyrex style bowls. I love the colors on this one and it should be easy to stitch because so much of it is blocks (or bowls) of a single color. This one is only available as a printed pattern, but most of them are digital.

It calls for six colors and comes out 5.6 by 6.9 inches, or 14.2 by 17.5 cm when stitched on 14 count fabric.

In addition to the bookmarks and book themed projects you’ll find a few kitchen projects and some Halloween and Christmas designs as well.

But what this shop is really about is needle minders, and there are tons of them, with all kinds of themes ranging from introverted and snarky to animal themes, food and beverages, retro designs and religious and inspiring needle minders.

If you don’t know about needle minders, these are acrylic with magnets. You stick a magnet to the back of your work, add the needle minder to the front of the work, and then it holds your sewing needle when you’re not stitching. No need for piercing your fabric or losing your needle between stitching sessions.

She also makes charms you can attach to your scissors (or use as a stitch marker if you’re a knitter or crocheter), inventory and project trackers and bags large and small to hold works in progress and other supplies. She’s also got a great collection of vintage cross stitch patterns and kits, so check out all the fun goodies at Inkspired Studio Shops.

[Photo: Inkspire Studio Shops]

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