Designer Spotlight: Dots and Spots Shop

Dots and Spots Shop on Etsy has a lot of pop culture cross stitch designs and kits, as well as covering animals, holidays, and more.

The biggest category (other than kits, which we’ll get back to in a minute) on the shop is movies and TV, which from a quick glance has an emphasis on horror and Harry Potter. There’s a stack of Stephen King novels, a realistic looking zombie, a bunch of old school horror movie villains, and some Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and more.

There’s a separate category for cartoons and fairy tales, which is heavy on Disney and Winnie the Pooh, along with a bit of Sonic and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

One design that caught my eye is this collection of movie cars, which includes cars from Ghostbusters, Jurassic Park and Wayne’s World to name a few. This one is available as a pattern and a kit, which could be a good deal if you don’t already have the 36 colors needed for this project. It measures 422 by 245 stitches, and comes out to a little more than 30 by 17.5 inches, or 76.6 by 44.5 cm on 14 count fabric. There are a couple of versions of this kind of design, too, so you can hunt around for your favorite movies, or even mix and match between patterns.

In addition to all the pop culture, you’ll find animals ranging from a super realistic jellyfish to cartoon sheep; collections of plants, mushrooms, dinosaurs and dogs; a whole section of mostly funny cat patterns; and a section called “other lovely patterns” that includes geometric designs, optical illusions and more.

Other categories include Halloween, Christmas, comics, food and drinks and more.

And as mentioned earlier, many of the patterns are available as kits, which include the printed pattern, thread and fabric. On many patterns you can choose the fabric count if you have a preference. It should be noted the shop is in Ukraine so I don’t know how long shipping takes to other countries, but if you really love these designs and want all the supplies at once it’s worth checking into.

See all their designs at Dots and Spots Shop.

[Photo: Dots and Spots Shop]

Inkspire Studio Shops offers cross stitch patterns as well as tons of different stitch minders, scissor charms and thread organization tools.

We’ll get to all that, but since we’re mostly here for the patterns, let’s start there.

All of the patterns are in one category (called Inkspire Originals if you’re following along). There are a lot of book-themed projects and more of the designs are bookmarks than anything else. You’ll find trope bookmarks, a Reading Rainbow themed design, flowers and a super cute watercolor set bookmark, to name a few.

And while the book themed projects are by far the most numerous, I wanted to share this super cute pile of vintage Pyrex style bowls. I love the colors on this one and it should be easy to stitch because so much of it is blocks (or bowls) of a single color. This one is only available as a printed pattern, but most of them are digital.

It calls for six colors and comes out 5.6 by 6.9 inches, or 14.2 by 17.5 cm when stitched on 14 count fabric.

In addition to the bookmarks and book themed projects you’ll find a few kitchen projects and some Halloween and Christmas designs as well.

But what this shop is really about is needle minders, and there are tons of them, with all kinds of themes ranging from introverted and snarky to animal themes, food and beverages, retro designs and religious and inspiring needle minders.

If you don’t know about needle minders, these are acrylic with magnets. You stick a magnet to the back of your work, add the needle minder to the front of the work, and then it holds your sewing needle when you’re not stitching. No need for piercing your fabric or losing your needle between stitching sessions.

She also makes charms you can attach to your scissors (or use as a stitch marker if you’re a knitter or crocheter), inventory and project trackers and bags large and small to hold works in progress and other supplies. She’s also got a great collection of vintage cross stitch patterns and kits, so check out all the fun goodies at Inkspired Studio Shops.

[Photo: Inkspire Studio Shops]

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