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]

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Make Tiny Cross Stitch Magnets

I love the look of variegated cross stitch floss and how it makes it possible to stitch with a variety of colors without changing thread, giving your project more depth and a more complex look without you having to do anything different.

Or at least not much different. I recently came across this blog post from The Copper Fox all about how to use variegated floss and it noted that many people would say it’s a good idea to complete a whole stitch (when you’re stitching whole cross stitches) with the floss before going on to the next stitch. Most of us stitch row by row, but of course if you do that with variegated yarn, it could change color along the way and you’ll end up with stitches that are half one color and half another color or a different shade.

Of course that makes total sense but I’d never thought about it.

The post includes swatches with different kinds of variegated threads to show the different between working stitch by stitch or row by row, and it doesn’t make a huge different over the small area shown but I can see how it might make a difference if you had really long rows or if you just want to make sure your stitches are a single color whenever possible.

In addition to this experiment, the post talks about other ways to work with multicolored floss, including deliberately mixing the colors among the strands of floss you are stitching with and stitching in a different order instead of right to left and top to bottom (or whatever direction you typically work) to get different effects from the thread.

It’s fun to geek out on this stuff because it can make a difference if you want to play with it, or you can just stitch on without giving it much thought, and both will give you good results.

Check out all the experiments at The Copper Fox.

Do you do anything different when you stitch with variegated floss? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: The Copper Fox]

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