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]

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Book-Themed Bookmark Cross Stitch Patterns

Unique Stitch Crafts is a Turkish designer that has a couple of main interests in their cross stitch designs: travel and Christmas stockings.

By far the biggest category in their storefront is Christmas stockings, with more than 100 options to choose from. There are fully stitched fronts with designs classic and whimsical (like an alicorn and a pastel rainbow, or a bunny in Harlequin costume playing violin to a mushroom) and designs that just go across the cuff of the stocking. There are ornaments with a Nutcracker or Frozen theme, New York City stockings and stockings for your dinosaur.

As an example, here’s a stocking covered with mini holiday designs, which you could also use as ornaments if you wanted. The full design is 165 by 255 stitches, which comes out to 10.3 by 16 inches, or 26 by 40.6 cm on 16 count fabric. The pattern just makes the front of the stocking so you need to grab some fabric for the back of the stocking and sew it together yourself.

There’s also a large collection of travel cross stitch patterns, including national parks designs both large and mini, and travel poster style designs for many US states and cities. (There’s not an Arkansas, which is my standard test since I live there, but there is a pattern of the Mississippi River bridge in Memphis, which is technically half in Arkansas.)

If you’re more of a world traveler you’ll find more of the travel poster style designs for cities and countries, including Thailand and China, Berlin, Sydney and Marrakech.

In addition to all of that, you’ll find patterns called retro, which includes a wide range of designs, but many seem to be food and coffee related; folk art designs (lots of flowers and birds); and famous paintings translated to cross stitch. Smaller categories include Christmas, Halloween, animals, kids and castles.

Check out all the fun designs at Unique Stitch Crafts on Etsy.

[Photo: Unique Stitch Crafts]

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