Designer Spotlight: October House Fiber Arts

October House Fiber Arts began with spinning fiber and knitwear designs, but has expanded over the years to include a large line of cross stitch patterns. (Unrelated: they’re based in Arkansas, same as me!)

A lot of their designs are shown as small pillows, which could be used for decor or as pincushions, but of course you could frame them as well.

It could be winter coming on where I live but I’m especially drawn to the Strawberry Faire pattern, shown above. It’s so cute with the strawberry and a bird that’s probably about to eat the strawberry at any moment, even though it is bigger than they are. The texture on the strawberry is a lot of fun.

The pattern measures 91 by 62 stitches, and is shown worked on 30 count linen. It calls for Classic Coloworks and Weeks Dyeworks threads, but conversion to DMC is included. It uses 10 colors. As stitched the project is about 6 by 4 1/8 inches.

As you might guess, there are lots of sampler-style patterns, too, even an Arkansas themed one, though of course you could change the wording and the year to make it your state and whatever year you’re stitching it, or whatever year you moved there, or use your last name and the year of your wedding, or your child’s name and their year of birth, whatever you like!

And because of the knitting connection, there are patterns related to knitting and spinning as well as cross stitch. The Knitter’s Alphabet may be my favorite. It features all the letters of the alphabet, the words knit and purl, and plenty of knitting related motifs like an alpaca and a sweater.

The website includes a blog and a few tutorials to help you with specific projects. And there are a few cute freebie cross stitch patterns (and knitting patterns!) too.

[Photo: October House Fiber Arts]

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Stitch Detailed Designs from Nature with Fiber on a Whim

Unique Stitch Crafts is a Turkish designer that has a couple of main interests in their cross stitch designs: travel and Christmas stockings.

By far the biggest category in their storefront is Christmas stockings, with more than 100 options to choose from. There are fully stitched fronts with designs classic and whimsical (like an alicorn and a pastel rainbow, or a bunny in Harlequin costume playing violin to a mushroom) and designs that just go across the cuff of the stocking. There are ornaments with a Nutcracker or Frozen theme, New York City stockings and stockings for your dinosaur.

As an example, here’s a stocking covered with mini holiday designs, which you could also use as ornaments if you wanted. The full design is 165 by 255 stitches, which comes out to 10.3 by 16 inches, or 26 by 40.6 cm on 16 count fabric. The pattern just makes the front of the stocking so you need to grab some fabric for the back of the stocking and sew it together yourself.

There’s also a large collection of travel cross stitch patterns, including national parks designs both large and mini, and travel poster style designs for many US states and cities. (There’s not an Arkansas, which is my standard test since I live there, but there is a pattern of the Mississippi River bridge in Memphis, which is technically half in Arkansas.)

If you’re more of a world traveler you’ll find more of the travel poster style designs for cities and countries, including Thailand and China, Berlin, Sydney and Marrakech.

In addition to all of that, you’ll find patterns called retro, which includes a wide range of designs, but many seem to be food and coffee related; folk art designs (lots of flowers and birds); and famous paintings translated to cross stitch. Smaller categories include Christmas, Halloween, animals, kids and castles.

Check out all the fun designs at Unique Stitch Crafts on Etsy.

[Photo: Unique Stitch Crafts]

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