Designer Spotlight: Lola Crow Cross Stitch

If you’re looking for cross stitch patterns with a gothic twist, you can find them at Lola Crow Cross Stitch. This Etsy seller based in Oregon describes their shop as having “adorably unusual cross stitch patterns” and I have to say I agree.

My daughter would love just about everything in this shop, from the creepy Christmas village (done as a stitchalong, it features six designs including a holiday tree decorated with skulls, a ghoulish set of carolers and a headless horse-drawn carriage, each one fitting in a 4-inch hoop so you can use them as ornaments) to the ghastly gnome in a poison garden. That one is 119 by 114 stitches (or 8.5 by 8.1 inches/21.6 by 20.7 centimeters on 14 count fabric) and uses 25 colors.

The pattern that caught my eye, though, which is shown above, is the greenhouse of oddities. This one was also done as a stitchalong but you can purchase the full pattern now. This one has so many cool details, from the wrought-iron greenhouse frames to a ton of different creepy plants, all of which are based on real, naturally occurring plants. There’s a corpse flower, of course, pitcher plants and other oddities that are poisonous, carnivorous, parasites and other weird plants.

You can also stitch in a scientist of your choice, as well as a skeleton, crows and other fun stuff. In all it uses 30 colors and measures 218 by 160 stitches, or 15.6 by 11.4 inches, which is 39.6 by 29.0 cm.

If you’re not into things that are quite that weird, they also have a series of cats in windows, not all of which are creepy (also reaching cats and cats in boxes, and some cats on shelves, too); chickens and goats; holiday patterns for Valentine’s Day, Halloween and Christmas; and some cool (OK, maybe a little creepy, too) crows.

If you are or you stitch for someone who is a little on the darker side, these patterns are a lot of fun. Check them out at Lola Crow Cross Stitch.

[Photo: Lola Crow Cross Stitch]

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35+ Sunflower Cross Stitch Patterns

A while back I made a little rainbow cross stitch pattern and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it, so I turned it into a patch. My idea was that it could be used on a jacket or backpack, or you could add a pin to the back and wear it temporarily on a shirt or elsewhere.

But what if you want to make your design more permanent? Is it possible to turn a piece of cross stitch into an iron-on design?

It turns out yes, it is, and Sirious Stitches has done it so I didn’t have to try to figure it out on my own.

The way they did it was by using HeatnBond, an iron-on adhesive that attaches fabrics without sewing. There was still sewing involved to finish the edges of the cross stitch fabric and make it look like a purchased patch. The post shows how to do this by hand or with your sewing machine. (I just did blanket stitch edging on mine, which doesn’t look like a “real” patch but is also a lot faster.)

Once you have the patch prepared it’s a pretty easy matter of using the fusible adhesive to the back of the patch so you can then iron it onto whatever jacket, pair of jeans, bag or whatever else you might want to add it to.

I guess I’m a little paranoid about the washability of cross stitch projects, though you could hand wash anything with an iron-on cross stitch patch as you might need to with a purchased iron-on patch, anyway. But this does look really cool and is a great option if you know you want to permanently add a cross stitch patch to a garment of bag.

Get the full tutorial over at Sirious Stitches. Would you add an iron-on cross stitch patch to something? I’d love to hear what you would use this technique for!

[Photo: Sirious Stitches]

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