Designer Spotlight: Needle Treasures Nook

If you like your cross stitch with a bit of a rustic look, you’ll want to check out the Etsy shop Needle Treasures Nook. This shop is based in Bulgaria and does a lot of projects shown as pillows, though of course you could frame them if you like that look better.

Because of the season at the time of this writing I was drawn first to the St. Patrick’s Day section, which has a couple of handfuls of projects for you to choose from. I like this lucky heart design, which includes shamrocks in a heart shape and a couple of ladybugs (or ladybirds, depending on where you live). Yes, they are supposed to be good luck, especially if one lands on you!

The design is 52 by 49 stitches and its shown on 32 count ecru linen that was dyed with green tea, which is kind of fun. Instructions for how to dye fabric with botanicals are included in the pattern. And of course you don’t have to make yours heart shaped but it is pretty that way.

In addition there are lots of other holiday themed cross stitch patterns. In particular there are a lot of Thanksgiving patterns, more even than Christmas, though only by a couple. Cute animals are on heavy rotation here, including turkeys, foxes, squirrels and rabbits. There are also plenty of leaves and pumpkins, of course.

How about those Christmas patterns? Here you’ll find sweet trees, rustic Santas, snow-themed projects and, of course, more adorable animals. You’ll also find projects for Valentine’s Day, Easter, spring and summer and an array of American patriotic patterns. (Do we Americans stitch so much red, white and blue stuff that designers from other countries need to make more for us? It’s a mystery.)

They also have a few fonts, Quaker style patterns, bees, flowers, fruits and more. Check out all the goodies at Needle Treasures Nook on Etsy.

[Photo: Needle Treasures Nook]

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St. Patrick's Day Gnome Cross Stitch Patterns

I have never stitched a greeting card, but I kind of like the idea of it. It’s a card and a gift all in one, and hopefully one the recipient will hang onto for years to come.

This collection of easy and colorful greeting card cross stitch patterns from Susan Bates (via Gathered) are a great place to start if you want to stitch your own greeting cards.

These text-based designs cover a lot of card-sending events, such as:

get well soon
happy birthday
thank you
thinking of you
congratulations
anniversary
new home
good luck

The lettering is done in gradients and there are other details like hearts and stars, a house key and a gift, depending on the text. There are full cross stitches and back stitch on all of the cards, and they use 15 colors for the cross stitching and six for the back stitching (and just two colors are used for both, so it’s 19 colors total).

The designs vary a bit in size but the biggest one is 52 by 67 stitches, which comes out to 3.75 by 4.75 inches or 9.5 by 12 cm when worked on 14 count fabric or 28 count evenweave. The text suggests beads are also used in the patterns but there’s no note of them in the key, so go wild and add some beads if you like.

Designs are worked on a price of 6 by 8 inch/15 by 20 cm fabric and then mounted to a card with a colorful baking piece of card stock behind it. This is easy to assemble with whatever cardstock greeting cards you have on hand.

You can get the free charts as a PDF from Gathered.

Have you ever stitched your own greeting cards? I’d love to hear about it, or let me know if these inspire you to try.

[Photo: Susan Bates via Gathered]

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