Designer Spotlight: Diana Watters Handmade

Diana Watters Handmade has lovely, vibrant and playful cross stitch patterns filled with color, but it’s also a great shop if you’re looking to be a crafty enabler in a young person’s life.

We’ll get to that in a minute, but for starters, you’ll find fun animals, flowers, geometric designs, modern landscapes, colorful robots and a couple of raccoons.

Her PDF downloads are all in one section of the shop so you’ll have to do a bit of scrolling to browse through, but there aren’t a hug number so it’s worth a look at all of them.

My favorites are the little scenes like this one, called Saffron’s Studio, which is a little bit like I’d want my own studio to be, covered in plants and color and funky lanterns. Maybe I can stitch it as inspiration?

It turns out this pattern was part of a murder mystery series, where each design has a clue to help you solve the crime. The idea is that a group of strangers moves into a house together, and each of the five patterns represents one of the characters. But it would certainly be a fun project to stitch even without the back story.

In addition to pattern downloads, many of her projects (including this one) are available as kits that include the pattern, fabric, hoop and pre-cut thread in all the colors you will need.

You’ll also find a selection of Christmas ornament kits, which range from cross stitch projects to plastic canvas and wooden blanks with holes that kids (or adults!) can stitch on. There are other wood cross stitch kits as well, in addition to plastic canvas kits and photo frame card kits so you can stitch your own greeting cards.

The shop also sells some supplies such as pieces of pre-cut fabric to fit different hoop sizes and materials kits for projects that do not include the pattern.

Check out all the goodies at Diana Watters Handmade on Etsy!

[Photo: Diana Watters Handmade]

I started writing this one as a designer spotlight kind of post, and then I realized when I was almost done with it that I had actually featured this designer before. It was in late 2024, so I’ll forgive myself for forgetting, but it’s worth taking another look at Mama Witch Cross Stitch. It looks like the shop has changed a bit since the last time I looked in, and you all just needed to see this amazing pattern anyway.

In the listing this one is called “whimsical opossum,” because of course it is. This little creature is sporting a straw hat and playing a banjo next to a crock of moonshine and surrounded by a wreath of pumpkins, mushrooms and other fall icons. Clicking through the images, though, I see it’s also called Possum Song, which is also pretty great.

Either way, the design is 144 by 130 stitches, which comes out to 10.29 by 9.29 inches, or about 26 by 23.5 cm on 14 count fabric.

This is not the only possum pattern offered by this shop, but you get the vibe from this one.

And to quickly check in on the rest of the shop, there are a great number of Halloween themed cross stitch patterns here, too, many with a sort of dark whimsy like mermaid skeletons, cat witches and a pumpkin-headed rider on a skeleton unicorn, to name just a few.

Another category worth noting, though it is much smaller, is “sad Victorian ghosts,” which features ghosts (sometimes in Victorian garb, sometimes not) going to the pub and the library, hanging laundry and taking a bath.

There are also a lot of Christmas designs, some sweet and some snarky, and a few creepy ones, too. Other categories include the new for 2026 “sunny patterns” (similar style motifs just with brighter colors and lighter backgrounds), as well as bookmarks and mini cross stitch designs.

[Photo: Mama Witch Cross Stitch]

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