Designer Spotlight: Crossweb

Crossweb is a British Etsy shop that has a lot of holiday patterns, florals and more. Let’s take a look!

As of this writing the shop has just under 90 patterns, and they are organized into a lot of categories such that some only have a couple of patterns in them. This is one shop that might be easier just to scroll through unless you are looking for something in particular.

In my scroll through I found this pretty pot of strawberries cross stitch pattern that I wanted to share. I love the coloration on the strawberries because it makes them look more realistic.

The design is 79 by 74 stitches, which comes out to 5.64 by 5.29 inches, or 14.33 by 13.43 cm, on 14 count fabric. It calls for 19 colors and includes full cross stitches and back stitching on the berries.

The biggest category on the site is Christmas, which only has 10 patterns, including a few sampler style patterns, a cocktail recipe and a very tired looking New Year’s owl.

Other “large” categories include botanical, flowers, food and bookmarks. I don’t know what makes something a botanical versus a flower because there are flower cross stitch patterns in the botanical section.

You’ll also find Halloween (and one Easter) cross stitch patterns, projects for weddings and babies. Rounding out the shop are projects related to art, animals, ballet, birds, cats, “under the sea” and insects/creatures (which has only one project, a super cute collection of bugs on flowers that would be cute in a child’s room).

There’s also a category called best wishes that includes a Mother’s Day project, a stitched birthday card and, for some reason, an English country cottage. Which I think proves as well as anything the statement from earlier about just scrolling through all the patterns to see what’s available because you never know what you’ll find.

Check out all the patterns at Crossweb on Etsy.

[Photo: Crossweb]

I was recently approached by Alyssa, the cross stitcher behind the Etsy shop Stitchonomy, to take a look at her cross stitch pattern subscription club, known as The Pattern Club.

I took a look around and there’s a lot of cute stuff and fun options you’ll want to check out, especially if you love themed patterns that are small, easy to stitch and fun to combine.

The Pattern Club combines cross stitching with a social network. When you open the site you’ll see a news feed and have the ability to share updates much like you would on Facebook. You can see who is online, have buddies and post your own updates and photos. The community aspect is a little sparse right now but that should only grow.

The stitch along hub is the place to find the most recent patterns and information on the current stitchalong. As of this writing the Book Lover’s stitchalong was happening, with little designs like Peter Rabbit, a skull for Hamlet and keys for Jane Eyre as well as authors including Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen.

Other pattern collections include European designs, Halloween, ocean life, an allotment garden and more. Alyssa tells me there’s a new theme every month that either she picks or members in the community suggest. You can stitch just the patterns you want or put them together to make a larger collage.

The Stitchanomini vault gives you access to all of the previous patterns, and new patterns are released daily through the stitchalong. You can download individual patterns (most of them are 19 by 19 stitches) as PDFs or Pattern Keeper files. The PDFs include a color and black and white chart as well as a floss list.

Another cool thing you can do is build your own pattern collages from all of the squares that have been released. The collage configurator allows you to add patterns of your choosing to a grid ranging from 2×2 patterns up to 4×4. You can scroll through all the current patterns or search by theme and size to make a project that suits your needs. (Above is an example I made kind of at random but you get the idea.)

If you want to check it out, you can grab a three-day free trial and see all the pattern options. Membership is $7.99 a month, or if you pay for a year at a time you’ll get two months free. In addition to the patterns in the club, members receive discounts on patterns and supplies purchased through the shop within the club. Annual members get access to three paid/retired stitchalongs and lifetime members receive all retired patterns.

If you check it out I’d love to hear what you think!

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