Designer Spotlight: Mariana Gonclaves ART

The cross stitch designs from Mariana Gonclaves ART often feel like little collections, fanciful samplers of books, dogs, butterflies and flowers. Let’s take a closer look.

The biggest category on the site is floral, which includes lots of designs that are almost like mandalas made out of flowers. Some feature flowers in one “corner” of the hoop while and insect approaches from the other side.

I picked the wildflowers bouquet as a representative pattern, which shows you a bit what I mean about it being a collection of flowers. This one is 78 by 79 stitches, which comes out to about 5.6 inches square, or 14.3 cm, on 14 count fabric. The pattern doesn’t indicate how many colors are used, but it’s at least 10 and probably more.

Another large pattern section ironically is called tiny, which features little images of lots of things like a whole design full of ice cream cones, coffee drinks, rubber duckies, mouse ears or tiny cakes, to name a few.

In the small creatures section you’ll find bees, birds, butterflies and other insects, sometimes with one main image surrounded by smaller images, mandala style, with others more sampler like.

Another category called pet lovers is full of dogs and cats, as well as a few designs of cats with books, because of course the cats hang out on your bookshelf, don’t they? (There’s also a bookmark design with cats and books which I love.)

Other categories include Christmas, bears, pasta and crystals. There’s also one called color geek that includes a color wheel, CMYK and RGB color designs and paint samplers. Good vibes is a catch all with a stitched disco ball and designs promoting your love of chocolate, coffee or pistachios.

These designs are fun, cheerful, colorful and look like they would be enjoyable to knit for yourself or someone who loves tiny stitched things and happy designs.

Check out the whole shop at Mariana Gonclaves ART on Etsy.

[Photo: Mariana Gonclaves ART]

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Bugs and Butterflies to Cross Stitch for Spring

Unique Stitch Crafts is a Turkish designer that has a couple of main interests in their cross stitch designs: travel and Christmas stockings.

By far the biggest category in their storefront is Christmas stockings, with more than 100 options to choose from. There are fully stitched fronts with designs classic and whimsical (like an alicorn and a pastel rainbow, or a bunny in Harlequin costume playing violin to a mushroom) and designs that just go across the cuff of the stocking. There are ornaments with a Nutcracker or Frozen theme, New York City stockings and stockings for your dinosaur.

As an example, here’s a stocking covered with mini holiday designs, which you could also use as ornaments if you wanted. The full design is 165 by 255 stitches, which comes out to 10.3 by 16 inches, or 26 by 40.6 cm on 16 count fabric. The pattern just makes the front of the stocking so you need to grab some fabric for the back of the stocking and sew it together yourself.

There’s also a large collection of travel cross stitch patterns, including national parks designs both large and mini, and travel poster style designs for many US states and cities. (There’s not an Arkansas, which is my standard test since I live there, but there is a pattern of the Mississippi River bridge in Memphis, which is technically half in Arkansas.)

If you’re more of a world traveler you’ll find more of the travel poster style designs for cities and countries, including Thailand and China, Berlin, Sydney and Marrakech.

In addition to all of that, you’ll find patterns called retro, which includes a wide range of designs, but many seem to be food and coffee related; folk art designs (lots of flowers and birds); and famous paintings translated to cross stitch. Smaller categories include Christmas, Halloween, animals, kids and castles.

Check out all the fun designs at Unique Stitch Crafts on Etsy.

[Photo: Unique Stitch Crafts]

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