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]

Hanukkah is a great reason to pull out your cross stitch fabric and thread and stitch up some fun seasonal cross stitch patterns.

If you have trouble spelling Hanukkah (I know I do!) you’ll want to stitch up the How Do You Spell… project from SKB Cross Stitch Design. This one includes a bunch of different ways to spell the holiday, along with some symbols like a dreidel and menorah. (Technically I think all the ways to spell it are “correct.”) The pattern includes full, fractional and bask titches, and measures 8.5 by 7 inches, or 21.6 by 17.8 cm. It has the date for 2004/5785 but you can easily change the year or leave that part off.

Another project with some fun word play is the Words to Live By chart from Sam Brie Stitches. This one includes Hanukkah related symbols and word presented crossword puzzle style, which is fun to stitch and to display. The design uses 10 colors and measures 74 by 103 stitches. It’s shown worked on 18 count fabric.

I may have shared these before, but the Hanukkah patterns from the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery are so cute they’re definitely worth sharing again. Happy Hanukkah features a menorah, dreidels, gelt, stars and candles, and it fits in a 6-inch hoop. At 75 by 75 stitches, it comes out to 5.4 inches/13.4 cm on 14 count Aida or 28 count linen. They also have this cute little dreidel stamp cross stitch pattern, which is 39 by 49 stitches, or 2.8 by 3.5 inches (about 7 by 9 cm) on 14 count Aida or 28 count linen.

Works By ABC has a lot of great patterns for Hanukkah, but here are just a couple to get you started. The Rules for Dreidel design is fun for kids and adults and shows the different sides of the dreidel and what it means when you land on them. The stitch count is 62 by 94 and its shown worked on 32 count linen. It calls for three colors. I also like this menorah one, which measures 44 by 49 stitches and uses two colors along with coordinating seed beads. On 32 count linen as shown (equivalent to 16 count Aida) it measures 2.75 by 3.1 inches, or almost 7 by 7.8 cm.

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