Designer Spotlight: Durene J Cross Stitch

I feel like I have shared a lot of British designer Durene J Cross Stitch’s patterns before, so it seemed like high time to share their Etsy shop as a designer spotlight.

When I think of Durene’s designs, I think of holiday inspired patterns with a cute, cartoony feel. They are whimsical and fun and super cute.

And while it’s true that a lot of her designs do focus on holidays, plenty of them do not, and here you’ll find a lot of cute animals, flower fairies, projects with a beach theme and more.

She does a lot of these large hoop cross stitch projects like the one shown here. This modern tulip design has the feel of a mandala or like looking at flowers through a kaleidoscope. It has a max stitch count of 163 by 163 stitches, and comes out to 11.6 by 11.6 inches or 29.6 cm when stitched on 14 count fabric. The listing doesn’t indicate how many colors it uses but there are at least nine.

But if you like seasonal stitching you should definitely take a look at hear seasonal patterns, too. Most of them are for Christmas, including cross stitch stocking patterns, but there are a good number for Halloween as well.

Another thing that’s really cool in her pattern collection is three-dimensional projects such as ornaments, candle mats, pouches, and even a cute Halloween bowl made with cross stitch on the outside and fabric on the inside.

For these projects you not only get the cross stitch charts but all the instructions for finishing the project including any templates you need to complete it. These would be fun to get as gifts for a stitching friend and make your own kit for them to finish the project.

Check out all of their fun stuff (including hardanger and embroidery projects, too) at Durene J Cross Stitch on Etsy.

[Photo: Durene J Cross Stitch]

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Cross Stitch Patterns Inspired by the Beach

When you put all the time and energy you do into making a great cross stitch project, it’s worth taking the time to frame it in a way that will make it look its best.

Often for smaller designs we’ll choose to frame projects in a hoop, which is cute and a fine option, especially for seasonal projects you might want to change out through the year. Others will send their finished projects for professional framing, which is a great option for gifts and heirloom items that need to be preserved, but it can also be quite expensive.

Crewel Ghoul has a great tutorial for a way that you can easily frame your cross stitch projects at home with just a few supplies.

She uses adhesive mounting board (but you can use non-adhesive board if you have some one hand or you need a size that’s not available in an adhesive version) and a few other basic supplies to secure the sides and corners of the cross stitch fabric around the board before putting the design in the frame.

This requires a bit of hand sewing, but we’re cross stitchers so I’m sure we can handle that.

Framing your cross stitch like this gives it a little padding in the frame, which makes it look better than if it were just flat in a frame with no special finishing. It’s also a great idea to use a frame without glass or to leave the glass out of the frame so it doesn’t crush your stitches.

And though this is super secure it’s not 100 percent permanent if you decide you don’t want the project framed in that way any more. Or you can take it out of the frame and the edges are still all nicely finished so you can display it a different way without having to do anything else to it.

Check out the tutorial at Crewel Ghoul.

[Photo: Crewel Ghoul.]

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