Designer Spotlight: Ruby Red Thread Design

Calling all lovers of geeky and gamer cross stitch! I’d like to introduce you to Ruby Red Thread Design, a Canadian Etsy shop full of projects you’ll love if you’re into Pokemon, Studio Ghibli, Final Fantasy and other geeky genres.

The first thing to catch my eye in this shop was the adorable hobbit hole cross stitch pattern, but since there’s a Ghibli category (which is a big love in our house; our cats are even named for Ghibli characters) I knew I needed to show one of those projects off.

I’m already working on a Baba Yaga house for my daughter, but I know she would also love this Howl’s Moving Castle project. Maybe her room needs to be all fictional houses? The hobbit hole would fit in that theme as well!

This big boy of a design is 258 by 300 stitches, and it uses 55 colors. It’s all full stitches and you’re not stitching the background, so choose a pretty color of cross stitch fabric. Worked on 14 count fabric this design would be 18.4 by 21.4 inches, or 46.7 by 53.4 cm. You can make it smaller by using a higher count fabric if you want.

You’ll also find some great stuff in the TV and movies section, with projects ranging from Luci in a bottle from Disenchanted to a Sailor Moon heart locket and several The Fifth Element themed projects. The Pokemon patterns are all super cute, and while I don’t know anything about Final Fantasy those projects look good, too.

There are even a few projects that aren’t linked to fandoms, though I’m not totally sure why you’d want such a thing.

Check out all the fun offerings at Ruby Red Thread Design on Etsy. As of this writing you can receive 20 percent off your order when you buy three patterns or more at once, so let’s get to geeky stitching!

[Photo: Ruby Red Thread Design]

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Review: Pokemon Cross Stitch

If you love patterns for frogs and sardines, animals, food, flowers and more, Happy Cross Stitchers has got you covered. With more than 1,600 patterns as of this writing, you’re almost guaranteed to find something you like.

I don’t know if I’ve missed something that cross stitch patterns featuring sardines are showing up everywhere (this is the second designer I’ve seen with them in the past month or so) but Happy Cross Stitchers has 60 sardine cross stitch patterns. They also have 200 patterns with flowers, and even more than that in their biggest category, which is animals.

Many of the animal cross stitch patterns have a modern nursery feel to them, like this set of four modern boho animal patterns featuring what I’m interpreting as owls, a moose (or it coulr be a deer), a donkey and a cow. Each individual pattern is 100 by 100 stitches and they use six or seven colors. The designs will come out to 7.1 inches or 18.14 cm when stitched on 14 count fabric.

There’s also a large number of Christmas cross stitch patterns, with lots of trees, little houses, Santas and word art. There are lots of bunnies, eggs and chicks in the Easter section.

The modern designs include lots of colorful, graphic florals. There are also well over 100 butterflies, many of which at least look like they could be inspired by real butterflies (though none of them are labeled as to what kind of butterfly they are).

You’ll also find plenty of cute and often funny cat and dog cross stitch patterns, though there are a lot more cats than dogs represented. And then there’s the food section, with patterns for fruits, different kinds of toast, a jar of pickles, doughnuts and more.

And that’s not even all there is in this store! I guess all this is a long way of saying there’s a lot of fun patterns at www.etsy.com/shop/HappyCrossStitchers on Etsy and you should go browse because you’ll probably find something you like. And if you do, I’d like to hear about it!

[Photo: Happy Cross Stitchers]

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