Designer Spotlight: Giselle’s Cross Stitch

Giselle’s Cross stitch is a sweet Etsy shop based in Sweden with a focus on holiday designs and items from nature.

The biggest category in the shop is Christmas, and it’s filled with cute nutrcrackers, snowflakes and Christmas houses. I like this Baking Christmas Bright pattern, which would be super cute added to the pocket of an apron or made for a grandparent who likes to bake with the grandkids.

It uses 14 colors and is 99 by 70 stitches. On 14 count fabric that comes out to 7.1 by 5 inches, or 18 by 12.7 cm. She says that it only took her five or six days to stitch this one, but I think it would take most of the rest of us a bit longer!

There’s also a general holiday section that includes Easter, Valentine’s Day, and a project for mom or dad. The Halloween patterns include a cute Halloween greenhouse, some cheeky ghosts and the Grim Reaper, among other things.

Another large category on the site is the nature one, which has a butterfly, some floral patterns, geese, a frog and some cute fall-themed samplers with mushrooms, foxes and rabbits.

You can also get a little Gothic with a series of potion bottle cross stitch patterns, a ghost chasing bubbles and an ambigram of the word witch (an ambigram is like a visual palindrome, so the word looks the same right side up and upside down).

Or stitch up some food. This section is heavy on fruit and I love the series of fruits that are made of the word for the fruit in the shape of the fruit. There are also some salty quotations, cute bookmarks and other fun designs, so check it all out at Giselle’s Cross Stitch on Etsy.

Have a favorite designer you’d like to see in the spotlight? Let me know in the comments!

[Photo: Giselle’s Cross Stitch]

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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