Designer Spotlight: LaSelva Design

If you are looking for cute cross stitch patterns of animals, LaSelva Design is the place to go because that’s literally all they have. This California based Etsy shop boasts more than 350 patterns as of this writing, and almost all of them have animals in them.

Even the holidays section is mostly patterns of animals wearing Santa hats, with a few Halloween patterns thrown in.

There are many more dog cross stitch patterns than there are cats, because the projects are largely breed specific designs. There’s a wide range offered, from classics like corgi and labs to different kinds of spaniels, pugs, rottweilers and more. These are generally pattern sets with two or more options that alter coloration, expression or pose so you can make one that looks like your dog.

Here I’m sharing the beagles because that might be my favorite breed (as a person who has never owned a dog). There are two options, one smiling and one with a more neutral face. They both measure 37 stitches wide and the smiling beagle is one stitch shorter than the non smiling one (31 versus 32 stitches). The smiling one uses 15 colors, while the other uses 12.

There are a good number of cat cross stitch patterns, too, but here instead of a lot of breeds you’ll also find cats like lions, leopards and cheetahs.

You’ll also find a lot of birds, with some you might keep as pets and others you’ll only see in nature. All of these designs look accurate to real animals, and again there are often multiple poses of the same animal sold together so you have options for the personality you want for your creation.

In addition there are patterns for aquatic animals, farm animals, insects, wild animals, reptiles, and pets that don’t fall into the dog/cat/bird classifications such as guinea pigs, ferrets and rabbits.

The only exceptions to the everything animals rule are a section of fruit cross stitch patterns and one labeled nature, which has florals and some geometric designs.

If you’re an animal lover and want to stitch up your pet or make pet themed cross stitch projects for your friends and family, LaSevla Design is a great shop to check out!

[Photo: LaSelvea Design]

Siren Stitchworks has cross stitch patterns that feel like old samplers (and some of them are in fact historical reproductions) even when they are modern designs. They have patriotic patterns, biscornus, pop culture patterns and more so let’s take a look.

One of the projects that caught my eye was the Mexican menagerie, a set of five Mexican folk art inspired creatures. There’s a bird, horses, dragons, alligators and cats on these designs, which you can make into tiny pillow or ornaments.

The pattern notes don’t say how many colors are used but it doesn’t look like any of them have more than five colors. It does note the smallest pattern is 59 by 59 stitches, and the largest is 82 by 68 stitches. They also only use full cross stitches.

The category with the largest number of entries (which is still only 12 as of this writing; this is a small shop) is called ornaments and smalls. It includes this menagerie and another Mexican animal collection, as well as traditional looking patterns with a twist, such as a little pattern with Yule goats, a needlebook cover that looks like a tombstone and alphabet samplers that include Greek, Latin and Hebrew.

There are also a bunch of samplers, divided into monochrome, traditional and reproduction samplers. There are some fun ones in the monochrome department, including a Titanic sampler and an aloha design with a pineapple motif. Traditional samplers include some patriotic designs (and a gorgeous folk art resist fist), as well as a really fat cat.

And the reproduction samplers include fun fonts, florals and birds like you’d expect from old sampler designs.

In addition you’ll find a few pop culture designs (mostly Game of Thrones inspired samplers for different houses), biscornus include a couple Chinese zodiac designs, and a few needle minders for sale.

Check out all the fun designs at Siren Stitchworks on Etsy.

[Photo: Siren Stitchworks]

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