Designer Spotlight: Cross Stitch By Coconut

If you love little cross stitch patterns, you’re going to have a lot of fun looking through the more than 150 designs on offer from Etsy seller Cross Stitch by Coconut.

The largest category on this Japanese designer’s shop is for gift tags, which of course could be stitched up as minis or in little collections in a frame instead. There are Christmas tags, military-themed projects, cats, other cute animals, fireworks and more in these collections.

Another large category, and the one that first caught my eye, is bookmarks. Here you’ll find lots of cute little bookmark designs, including Alice in Wonderland theme, dinos, mermaids and more. These little crabs shown here would be perfect for a summer reading bookmark.

The pattern uses just two colors and easily fits a two-inch wide bookmark blank (or a piece of regular cross stitch fabric cut to fit). The design is 26 by 85 stitches, or 1.86 by 6.07 inches (4.7 by 15.4 cm). This would be so cute on pale blue or off-white/sand colored fabric.

In addition to gift tags and bookmarks, there are other little patterns focusing on holidays (mostly Christmas and Valentine’s Day); animal designs, many with a Japanese twist; and an array of alphabet fonts you can use in any of your cross stitch projects.

In addition to the individual patterns, the shop also offers a few pattern bundles, including animal patterns, bookmarks and an array of 1.5 inch/3.8 cm mini cross stitch patterns. There are also a few Christmas themed mini bundles (the spooky Christmas mini collection might be my favorite.

Check out all this shop has to offer at Cross Stitch by Coconut.

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[Photo: Cross Stitch by Coconut]

Next Pattern:

25 Floral Bookmark Cross Stitch Patterns

I have a complicated relationship with my embroidery needles. Which is a fancy way of saying I don’t really take care of my needles at all. Even though I know I have embroidery needles to use for cross stitch and sewing, needles that are certainly still in their packages, I can rarely find them when I need them.

So when I saw this post from Crewel Ghoul about how to store your embroidery needles, it hit close to home for me.

It doesn’t really say anything I didn’t already know, but it is good advice that might also serve as a reminder for you to take better care of your needles when you cross stitch or do other hand-sewing projects so that you’ll be able to find your needles again when you need them.

It would help me a lot if I had a dedicated place to keep needles I’m not using, including the needles that are still in their packages from when I bought them. You’d think I would keep them with my embroidery floss but apparently you would be mistaken about that.

Another good idea for me is to have a place to put needles I’ve been using when I am done with them. Because goodness knows I’m not going to put them back in the package. (Which may actually be a good thing because then I know which one I’ve been using and which ones are fresh. Not that I replace my needles regularly, but still.) I own pincushions but I don’t really use them for anything, which is silly.

Check out the post at Crewel Ghoul to see all the options available for storing your embroidery needles properly. I’d love to hear what you do, especially if you have a better system than I do (which, honestly, would be any system at all).

[Photo: Crewel Ghoul]

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