Designer Spotlight: Max Stitches Art

Max Stitches Art is an Etsy shop based in Ukraine that’s full of gothic, dark and witchy designs you’re sure to love if that’s your vibe.

The biggest section in the shop is called new, which isn’t super helpful for knowing what’s in there, but if you give it a browse you’ll get a sense for what the shop’s designs are like. Which, again, is dark (lots of these designs are literally dark because they’re shown stitched on dark fabric).

You’ll find weird things like a turtle with a terrarium on its back, a mushroom that’s really a UFO with a tractor beam for a stem, a jackalope and a cat dressed as Dracula.

One of my favorites, though it is hard to pick, is this reading frog (I’ve been on a bit of a frog and toad kick lately because they’re basically my life coaches). The pattern is 80 by 86 stitches and uses 18 colors. On 14 count fabric it comes out to 5.71 by 6.14 inches, or 14.51 by 15.6 cm.

The biggest more specific category covers animals, and again there’s a big range of projects, including a snake or a frog in a jar, a cat on the toilet reading the newspaper, a snuggly hedgehog in a sleeping bag, a ship in a bottle with an octopus and much more. A separate section is for insects, with lots of moths and ladybugs among others.

You’ll also find a lot of Christmas patterns in a similar style, with aliens, bottles, dinosaurs, cyrptids and ghosts heavily featured. There are also special sections for ghosts and skeletons, but they definitely aren’t exclusive to Halloween.

There are also witchy designs, funny quotes, kitchen themed items and more.

Check out all the designs at Max Stitches Art on Etsy. If you love it there’s also an option to buy the whole store!

[Photo: Max Stitches Art]

I’m going to go ahead and admit that I totally missed Toy Story 4, so it took my by surprise when Toy Story 5 came out, but let’s celebrate with some Toy Story cross stitch patterns.

This sweet design including Woody, Buzz and Jessie is from The Xstitch Shop, and they actually have a few different Toy Story options. This one says it is for intermediate stitches, probably because of the size and number of colors, but the sales page doesn’t say how big it is or how many colors it uses. It’s still cute, though!

If you’ve got a fan of Jessie in your household, this collection of Jessie themed icons is super cute to stitch. The design is from Mercury Stitches and it measures 97 by 144 stitches. that comes out to 6.9 by 10.3 inches, or 17.6 by 26.1 cm, and uses 11 colors. It has full and half cross stitches, as well as back stitching and French knots.

Share the love of friendship with this sweet Woody and Buzz heart hands cross stitch pattern from Pixell Patterns. This design uses eight colors and is shown worked on 14 count fabric, but the notes don’t indicate how bit is is (based on a finished project photo, though, it looks pretty big).

And for the Buzz Lightyear fans, of course we have to have a “To infinity and beyond” pattern, so here’s one from Silver Lake Stitches. This design is super cute on blue fabric, but use whatever you have. It measures 78 by 92 stitches, which comes out to 5.6 by 6.6 inches, or 14.2 by 16.7 cm, on 14 count fabric. It calls for 14 colors.

Or if you want to go beyond the core three main character toys, check out this project from ThreeOOne Patterns, which includes our main toys as well as Bo Peep and her sheep, Bullseye the horse, the Slinky dog, Rex, Ham, the Potato Heads and an alien. The design is 310 by 80 stitches, which comes out to 21.14 by 3.5 inches, or 53.7 by 8.9 cm, when worked on 14 count fabric. It uses 65 colors. Or pick out your favorite characters to make a smaller project.

All those characters and a few more are found on the mini Toy Story character sampler from Knotalot UK (only part of which is shown above). This one uses 31 colors and measures 134 by 108 stitches. It includes whole and fractional stitches, as well as back stitching. On 14 count fabric stitching the whole thing would make a project that’s 9.57 by 7.71 inches, or 24.31 by 19.59 cm.

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