Designer Spotlight: Needle Minder Lair

As you might guess from the name of this Etsy shop, Needle Minder Lair sells a lot of different kinds of needle minders. We’ll get to that, but they also have a nice collection of cross stitch patterns, too, so let’s take a look!

Needle Minder Lair has a heavy emphasis on pop culture and video game designs, including Final Fantasy, Kirby, Resident Evil and Zelda. There are D&D themed designs and a section called gaming, which is more video game characters and controllers. You’ll also find an anime section and Pokemon game boy patterns, too.

There are a lot of pastels here, including in projects you might not expect to be pastel, like landscapes of Japan or witchy projects. For example, this pretty pastel rainbow plague doctor mask. The pattern measures 83 by 98 stitches, which comes out to 5.93 by 7 inches or 15.06 by 17.78 cm on 14 count fabric. It uses 11 colors and is all full stitches.

I like it on this pink background but it would look really cool on a black background, too.

In other cross stitch patterns in the shop you’ll find cats, nature and city landscapes, alphabets and kawaii patterns, which include lots of food, koi and other cute animals.

In addition to cross stitch patterns you will also find a great variety of needle minders in this shop (to review, a needle minder is a magnet and a magnetic thing that you stick to your cross stitch fabric that can then hold your needle when you aren’t stitching so it won’t fall off or make a hole in your fabric). There are single minders and sets with a bunch of themes, including animals, mermaids and tarot.

They also have some keychains, stickers and magnets, a lot of which are related to Resident Evil, but there are some other themes thrown in as well.

Check out all their goodies at Needle Minder Lair on Etsy.

[Photo: Needle Minder Lair]

I was recently approached by Alyssa, the cross stitcher behind the Etsy shop Stitchonomy, to take a look at her cross stitch pattern subscription club, known as The Pattern Club.

I took a look around and there’s a lot of cute stuff and fun options you’ll want to check out, especially if you love themed patterns that are small, easy to stitch and fun to combine.

The Pattern Club combines cross stitching with a social network. When you open the site you’ll see a news feed and have the ability to share updates much like you would on Facebook. You can see who is online, have buddies and post your own updates and photos. The community aspect is a little sparse right now but that should only grow.

The stitch along hub is the place to find the most recent patterns and information on the current stitchalong. As of this writing the Book Lover’s stitchalong was happening, with little designs like Peter Rabbit, a skull for Hamlet and keys for Jane Eyre as well as authors including Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen.

Other pattern collections include European designs, Halloween, ocean life, an allotment garden and more. Alyssa tells me there’s a new theme every month that either she picks or members in the community suggest. You can stitch just the patterns you want or put them together to make a larger collage.

The Stitchanomini vault gives you access to all of the previous patterns, and new patterns are released daily through the stitchalong. You can download individual patterns (most of them are 19 by 19 stitches) as PDFs or Pattern Keeper files. The PDFs include a color and black and white chart as well as a floss list.

Another cool thing you can do is build your own pattern collages from all of the squares that have been released. The collage configurator allows you to add patterns of your choosing to a grid ranging from 2×2 patterns up to 4×4. You can scroll through all the current patterns or search by theme and size to make a project that suits your needs. (Above is an example I made kind of at random but you get the idea.)

If you want to check it out, you can grab a three-day free trial and see all the pattern options. Membership is $7.99 a month, or if you pay for a year at a time you’ll get two months free. In addition to the patterns in the club, members receive discounts on patterns and supplies purchased through the shop within the club. Annual members get access to three paid/retired stitchalongs and lifetime members receive all retired patterns.

If you check it out I’d love to hear what you think!

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