Mood Stitching is a rather small Etsy shop based in Thailand, bu the detail and specialties of the shop really caught my eye and made me want to share it.
One of the biggest categories is called Fraktur, which I knew of as being a German style blackletter font, but which this page uses to mean stylized folk art bird designs (sometimes also with lettering).
It’s hard to pick a favorite from this selection, I think this one of birds with tulips gives you a good idea of what we’re talking about. This one is based on an antique sampler from Pennsylvania, and most of the designs have a similar color palette and feeling.
This one uses five colors and only full cross stitches. It measures 143 by 150 stitches, which comes out to 10.2 by 10.7 inches, or 25.9 by 27.2 cm, when stitched on 14 count fabric. The pattern notes include measurements for other fabric counts if you want to make yours smaller.
Other designs in this vein often include two birds and a symmetrical floral design, but not always. There are a few individual birds and a couple of designs with alphabets, including one with a series of unicorns with crossed horns with a couple of different alphabets underneath.
Which is a nice segue into the other major category on the site, which is samplers. Here you’ll find a couple more traditional sampler style designs with small images and alphabets, as well as some that just include small images of seasonal icons or nautical designs. There are also a few with houses and one of cats in love.
In addition to these categories there are a few holiday themed patterns including Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Independence Day and Valentine’s Day. These too are heavy on the sampler feel if that’s a style you like.
Visit Mood Stitching on Etsy to find all these fun patterns, and let me know if you end up stitching something up!
[Photo: Mood Stitching]
Non Stop Stitch is an Etsy shop based in Ukraine with a dizzying quantity and variety of cross stitch patterns.