Designer Spotlight: Maple Squirrel Stitch

Cute animals, lots of Christmas projects and nature scenes are among the fun things you will find from Maple Squirrel Stitch.

This Canada-based Etsy shop has been sharing cross stitch projects for three years, and has nearly 500 patterns as of this writing. Let’s check them out!

The biggest section on the site is animals, which covers everything from cute, kind of cartoony dogs, cats and horses to more realistic renderings of deer, polar bears and squirrels. There’s a fox reading a book, a mouse decked out in winter gear and several animals getting coffee.

Or how about this cross-stitching hedgehog who is stitching a hedgehog in a cross stitch pattern? This little cutie is 85 by 111 stitches, which comes out to 5.9 by 7.9 inches, or 15.4 by 20.1 cm, when stitched on 14 count fabric. The listing includes sizing for other fabric counts, too, if you want to make it smaller.

The design includes full stitches, half stitches, three-quarter stitches, backstitch and French knots, so it’s not a beginner project, but it is super cute. It uses 32 colors and 11 blends.

Coming in close behind the animal category is Christmas, which includes a lot of Christmas sweater cross stitch designs and bell-shaped patterns will all sorts of holiday themes. Also check out the section called souvenirs if you’re looking for holiday projects; there you will find a collection of Christmas ornaments cut to shape.

Landscapes is another popular category that includes a hodgepodge of designs, from forest landscapes and cabins in the woods to pumpkins in a jar, the solar system and a jet wing from an airplane window, to name a few.

Other categories you’ll find include plants, birds, people and food, as well as Halloween projects.

The shop also has a few cross stitch kits for patterns if you prefer buying all your supplies together.

Check them out at Maple Squirrel Stitch and let me know what you think or if you find a must-stitch pattern for yourself.

[Photo: Maple Squirrel Stitch]

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Polar Bear Cross Stitch Patterns

I have never stitched a greeting card, but I kind of like the idea of it. It’s a card and a gift all in one, and hopefully one the recipient will hang onto for years to come.

This collection of easy and colorful greeting card cross stitch patterns from Susan Bates (via Gathered) are a great place to start if you want to stitch your own greeting cards.

These text-based designs cover a lot of card-sending events, such as:

get well soon
happy birthday
thank you
thinking of you
congratulations
anniversary
new home
good luck

The lettering is done in gradients and there are other details like hearts and stars, a house key and a gift, depending on the text. There are full cross stitches and back stitch on all of the cards, and they use 15 colors for the cross stitching and six for the back stitching (and just two colors are used for both, so it’s 19 colors total).

The designs vary a bit in size but the biggest one is 52 by 67 stitches, which comes out to 3.75 by 4.75 inches or 9.5 by 12 cm when worked on 14 count fabric or 28 count evenweave. The text suggests beads are also used in the patterns but there’s no note of them in the key, so go wild and add some beads if you like.

Designs are worked on a price of 6 by 8 inch/15 by 20 cm fabric and then mounted to a card with a colorful baking piece of card stock behind it. This is easy to assemble with whatever cardstock greeting cards you have on hand.

You can get the free charts as a PDF from Gathered.

Have you ever stitched your own greeting cards? I’d love to hear about it, or let me know if these inspire you to try.

[Photo: Susan Bates via Gathered]

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