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]

One of the easiest ways to make a cross stitch project more personal is to add text to it. Whether you’re adding the names of people getting married to a generic floral cross stitch design, birth information to a project on theme with the new baby’s room or just adding a word or phrase that’s meaningful to you, adding words to cross stitch projects make them that much more special.

But if you’re not working with a project that already has text built in, or you want to change the text that’s there, that can feel a little daunting.

Caterpillar Cross Stitch has a great guide to adding names and words (as well as numbers) to projects, which talks you through what to consider and how to actually go about adding text to a cross stitch project successfully.

You’ll need to think about what kind of font you want to use and if you’re using back stitched letters or larger filled letters, how much space you need and how the letters work together in the text you’re planning to make sure it’s readable.

Their post includes common pitfalls such as running out a space or ending up with text that’s off center and how to avoid them (spoiler: chart out your text before you stitch!).

The whole post is really helpful if you’ve never added lettering to a project before and don’t know where to start. I like to use block letters in back stitch when learning how to add text to cross stitch, but of course there are tons of lettering options. Check out this collection of cross stitch fonts if you want to see some different things you can try.

And head over to Caterpillar Cross Stitch to get more tips for how to successfully add lettering to your cross stitch projects. They also have their own alphabet and number charts you can buy to add text to your stitching.

Have you ever added text to a cross stitch project? I’d love to hear how it went!

[Photo: Caterpillar Cross Stitch]

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