Designer Spotlight: Needleshaped Ltd

If you like your cross stitch patterns with a gothic twist, you’re going to love the collection of patterns offered by UK-based Etsy shop Needleshaped Ltd. I don’t know if they’re really from a town called Gravesend like their bio (which also calls them “cross stitch conjurers”) says, but I almost wouldn’t care if they made that up to add to their spooky credibility.

Here you’ll find lots of creepy and funny cross stitch patterns, lots of text-based patterns, dark princesses, horror, butterflies and more. There are a few fun tattoo-inspired designs sold as kits (many of their patterns are available both as the pattern alone and as a kit with supplies), as well as designs specific to Halloween and Christmas. There are also pop culture designs, occult inspired patterns and a few that are just funny.

I wanted to share this oujia board cross stitch pattern just because it shows how much fun you can have even just with one color of thread. (It also is a great example of what I was talking about the other day about how fun the projects are that are worked with black cross stitch fabric, even though that increases their skill level a bit.) It calls for using a piece of fabric that’s 26 by 18 inches (66 by 45.7 cm), which leaves some room around the edges as shown in the photo. You can also get this one as a kit that includes the pattern, fabric, needle and thread, which comes in a plastic package should you want to gift it to someone else. (You’ll need your own embroidery hoop if you use one.)

You can find all of the digital patterns together without the kit selections here for easier browsing, or head to their main Etsy storefront page to check out all the goodies.

[Photo: Needleshaped Ltd]

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35+ Sunflower Cross Stitch Patterns

I am known to be really paranoid when it comes to cutting cross stitch fabric for a project. I will math it out, count, recount, think about it, worry, decide it needs to be bigger than math plus my already large margin for error suggests. If I could just be confident in choosing the correct size of fabric I’d have a lot more stitching time!

Sometimes you have a lot of extra fabric beyond where you are stitching because your fabric is too big. Or maybe you’re just working on a big project that leaves excess fabric potentially in your way when you are stitching.

Hannah Hand Makes has a post all about how to deal with excess fabric on the sides of a large cross stitch project (which is actually a podcast if you’d rather listen). She is talking more about huge stitchalong projects where you need a big piece of fabric than my particular problem of timid cutting, but the same advice applies.

I am lazy and don’t want to buy new products, so I would probably devise some sort of rolling and clamping situation with items I already have in the house, but she has some great tips for actual products you can buy that will help with this situation such as large hoops, standing frames and scroll frames. One of these solutions would certainly be worth the investment if you’re doing a year long (or otherwise long term) stitchalong or really big project where that excess fabric is going to cause problems.

Because beyond being annoying, odds are good I’m going to end up stitching right through that extra fabric and making a big mess.

Check out all the tips for working with a really big piece of cross stitch fabric over at Hannah Hand Makes.

What’s the biggest cross stitch project you’ve ever made? I’d love to hear all about it!

[Photo: Hannah Hand Makes]

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