Designer Spotlight: Creative Enigma Store

I feel like “Creative Enigma” is a pretty apt name for this Etsy shop, because it offers a selection of things that to me don’t completely make sense being in the same shop. Some designers stick to a theme or a particular aesthetic, and others just don’t, which is totally fine. Creative Enigma Store, to me anyway, fits in that second category.

There are a selection of cross stitch minis (some of which might be good for the cross stitch magnets I shared the other day) and a large selection of patterns related to movies, TV shows and video games.

But there are also geometric designs and blackwork, adorable animals and even a couple of holiday patterns. For such a relatively small shop (fewer than 70 designs as of this writing) there’s a pretty big variety.

Since the movie, TV and video game section is the largest by far, I knew I needed to share one of those patterns. There are chibis of characters from The Walking Dead, plenty of horror movie characters and Forrest Gump on his park bench, to name a few.

Being a X Files fan from way back, though, I had to share the “I Want to Believe” pattern. This one is 133 by 200 stitches and uses 18 colors. It has a sort of grainy look to it just like you’d expect from a picture of a UFO. Using 14 count fabric the design comes out to 9.5 by 14.3 inches, or 24.1 by 36.3 cm. Which makes it almost poster sized!

If you’re a fan of Chinese astrology you’ll find a cool set of zodiac animal patterns, which would be lovely to stitch up for a fan of that animal even if its not their zodiac sign.

Check out the fun variety of cross stitch patterns available from Creative Enigma Store on Etsy.

[Photo: Creative Enigma Shop]

Next Pattern:

Make Tiny Cross Stitch Magnets

To celebrate back to school season, I wanted to make a fun and useful cross stitch pattern, so I decided on this cross stitch pencil bookmark.

It’s a really easy pattern even though it calls for six colors. You definitely don’t have to use all the colors if you don’t want to, and you can use different colors to make a colored pencil instead of the traditional yellow one.

These sorts of projects always end up taking longer than I imagined they would in my head, because I just don’t stop to do the math of exactly how many stitches are in a piece that’s 23 stitches by 74 rows (1,702, though not every single one of them is covered, most of them are).

But because the coloring of the chart is so straightforward, I’d say it also doesn’t take as long as 1,700 stitches sounds, if that makes sense. Because you barely have to count anything and could make most of it without consulting the chart, you can get into a groove pretty easily and stitch whole sections in a single sitting. I had a lot of fun stitching this one and I think you will, too.

Once the stitching is done, take a piece of felt and sew it to the back to hide the mess you’ve made and make it a nice smooth bookmark that’s easy to use in whatever book you might be reading.

This is a fun one to make for yourself or a kid in your life who is going back to school. But it would also be a fun teacher appreciation gift or holiday gift, especially for an English teacher but really anyone would like this one I think.

You can grab the free chart and get all the instructions for assembling your own cross stitch pencil bookmark over at Our Daily Craft.

Next Pattern:

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