Designer Spotlight: Mrs. Peggoty Arts

If you like your cross stitch projects with a literary twist, you’re sure to love the Etsy shop of Mrs. Peggoty Arts. This shop based in Italy describes itself as being “where art meets literature and other incredible things.” Let’s take a deeper look.

The shop as of this writing has more than 50 cross stitch patterns covering a range of literary figures. You’ll find (as a rather random sample) Miss Marple, Dorian Gray, the Dodo from Alice in Wonderland, Mr. Knightley, Willy Wonka, Anne of Green Gables. Captain Nemo, Aslan and Jo March from Little Women. There’s an emphasis on children’s literature including several designs from Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, as well as lots of English literature such as characters from the Brontes.

Because I’m a big fan of Matilda (both the book and the character) I picked her design as a sample to show you. Most of them are similar to this, though, with an ornate border and the character with their name somewhere in the design. Here Matilda almost looks like she’s juggling books, which seems appropriate if you’re familiar with the character.

This particular design is 130 by 184 stitches and uses whole stitches only in 22 colors. On 14 count fabric it will measure 9.29 by 13.14 inches, or 23.6 by 33.3 cm. The whole background is stitched but if you wanted to make it a little easier for yourself you could use colored fabric and not stitch all of the background. Totally up to you!

There are also some smaller cross stitch patterns, also with a literary twist. There are also TV and movie cross stitch patterns, if your taste runs more to Jessica Fletcher or Elvira as well as historical figures like Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe and Henry VIII.

In addition to these fun cross stitch patterns, Mrs. Peggoty also has great literary and pop culture themed coloring pages to download and print, and some of her designs are available as paint by number patterns, too.

Check out Mrs. Peggoty Arts on Etsy to see all the fun stuff!

[Photo: Mrs. Peggoty Arts]

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Celebrate International Women's Day with Cross Stitch

The designs from Bella Rose Craft look like they would be good for beginner cross stitchers and others who like relatively simple and small designs that are quick to finish for gifts or decor.

I’ll mention up front that this Etsy shop based in Indiana has no organization whatsoever. There are two categories: kits and patterns. So it’s a bit of a treasure hunt to find what you might be interested in.

As mentioned there are lots of minis and small looking projects with simple lines and minimal colors. There are holiday projects, animals, summer motifs like palm trees and beach umbrellas, a bathtub with a rubber duck, some text based designs (like hoppy spring and merry and bright), some biblical and religious designs, flowers, bunting and more.

On a site like this its difficult to pick something representative of the whole page, but I liked this bees and beehive design, so it’s the one I picked to share. This one illustrates a lot of my general points about the patterns from this shop. It’s small (2.79 by 2.57 inches, or about 7 by 6.5 cm on 14 count fabric), it looks like it’s all whole cross stitches and probably uses only six colors, and a couple of colors are only used for a handful of stitches.

Of the 300 plus cross stitch patterns available as of this writing, 140 are also available as cross stitch kits. These would be great to give as gifts if you’re trying to get someone interested in cross stitching. The kits include the pattern, fabric and floss, and you can choose to have it include a needle or not. The hoop is not included but the patterns explain what kind of hoop is shown if you want to get one to match.

So if you’re looking for cute, beginner friendly patterns for yourself or you’re trying to be a crafty enabler for someone else, check out Bella Rose Craft on Etsy.

[Photo: Bella Rose Craft]

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