Designer Spotlight: LilyMae Stitching

If you are looking for adorable cross stitch patterns for a baby or little one’s room, LilyMae Stitching on Etsy is a great place to start. From adorable animal alphabets (in regular and mini sizes!) to sweet little animals and a whole section just called “happy little patterns” (they are!), there is just so much cuteness in store.

Since I do love the happy little patterns, let’s take a closer look at this happy little blue balloon pattern. The design includes only full cross stitches and measures 61 by 95 stitches. On 14 count fabric that comes out to 4.375 by 6.75 inches, or 11.1 by 17.2 cm. It uses six colors, and despite being labelled a blue balloon it could absolutely be a pink, purple, green or any other color balloon that you would like it to be.

In addition to all the baby and little-kid-centric designs, there are a handful of Christmas cross stitch patterns (some religious, some not) and some sort of abstract, boho landscape designs.

There are also a few motivational quotes if that’s your thing.

But really a lot of the patterns are animals made into letter shapes, so if that’s a thing you’d like for a baby’s or kid’s room, definitely check those out. My kiddo’s name would be alligators and narwhals, which are pretty cute. You could also do initials if you don’t want to do a full name, or stitch the whole alphabet if you want to get really into it. You can buy the whole set as one bundle, or just buy the letters you need individually.

Check out all the cuteness at LilyMae Stitching.

Are you a cross stitch designer or do you have a favorite I haven’t featured yet? Let me know in the comments or fill out the form at the link at the top of the page that says “submit a DIY.”

[Photo: LilyMae Stitching]

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Baby Animal Cross Stitch Patterns

I love the look of variegated cross stitch floss and how it makes it possible to stitch with a variety of colors without changing thread, giving your project more depth and a more complex look without you having to do anything different.

Or at least not much different. I recently came across this blog post from The Copper Fox all about how to use variegated floss and it noted that many people would say it’s a good idea to complete a whole stitch (when you’re stitching whole cross stitches) with the floss before going on to the next stitch. Most of us stitch row by row, but of course if you do that with variegated yarn, it could change color along the way and you’ll end up with stitches that are half one color and half another color or a different shade.

Of course that makes total sense but I’d never thought about it.

The post includes swatches with different kinds of variegated threads to show the different between working stitch by stitch or row by row, and it doesn’t make a huge different over the small area shown but I can see how it might make a difference if you had really long rows or if you just want to make sure your stitches are a single color whenever possible.

In addition to this experiment, the post talks about other ways to work with multicolored floss, including deliberately mixing the colors among the strands of floss you are stitching with and stitching in a different order instead of right to left and top to bottom (or whatever direction you typically work) to get different effects from the thread.

It’s fun to geek out on this stuff because it can make a difference if you want to play with it, or you can just stitch on without giving it much thought, and both will give you good results.

Check out all the experiments at The Copper Fox.

Do you do anything different when you stitch with variegated floss? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: The Copper Fox]

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