Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

Designer Spotlight: Sawanita

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Sawanita is an Etsy shop with a heavy focus on Christmas and winter designs, folk art and projects that look like quilt blocks.

The project that first caught my eye from this shop was this set of Scandinavian style birds. In the little picture on the front page of the shop they reminded me of postage stamps, but they’re a lot bigger and more detailed than stamps. And while they look complicated, each one only uses five or six colors.

Each design is 160 by 160 stitches, which comes out to 29 cm or 11.43 inches square on 14 count fabric. The listing includes other counts if you want to make them smaller. But I think they’d be great at that size all hung in a group as if it were one image. That’s a big project but so fun, too.

In addition to these birds you’ll find lots of pretty snowflake designs, Christmas houses and nutcrackers, some really cute ghosts, and a few lovely designs with witches that kind of remind me of woodcuts. There are also some fun nature inspired patterns including samplers of snowy owls, colorful frogs and fanciful mushrooms.

The section titled ornament cross stitch is full of colorful and intricate designs, like Quaker blocks worked in a rainbow of colors, Gothic hearts that look like some kind of ancient medal and some super colorful and detailed lanterns I shared the other day in my Ramadan cross stitch patterns post.

The shop doesn’t have a huge selection, but they’re all interesting and worth taking a look at if you’re into traditional designs with a modern twist. Check them out at Sawanita on Etsy.

If you have an Etsy shop or love to shop somewhere I haven’t featured before, let me know! You can tell me all about your favorite shop by clicking “suggest a DIY” at the top of the page.

[Photo: Sawanita]

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D&D Cross Stitch Patterns

My husband is a D&D player from way back and still does role playing with his friends most weekends. There are lots of great D&D cross stitch patterns, but somehow the ones that caught my eye this time have a theme of being about the D&D classes or involving dice (or both). 

I love this collection of the D&D classes done as tarot cards. These would be so fun to stitch up for all the people in your party, or make the full set as one big wall hanging for the game room. There are 16 patterns total (just a few are shown here) and each one just uses three colors. The designs are from GlitchStitchAU.

This set kind of reminds me of astrological signs, though I can’t really say why. This set of 16 designs from White Raven Patterns is color coordinated so it sort of makes a rainbow if you stitch all of them. The dungeon master one is more colorful. Each one uses five or six colors and fits in a 10-inch hoop. 

Combining character classes and dice we get this set of 14 designs from Stitch it Picasso. Each one includes the class name and a die with a number on it, as well as some images that make sense for that class (the bard has a lute and music notes, for example). Each design is around 90 by 90 stitches and they use 13 to 19 colors each, depending on the design. 

Or you can make patches that look like dice with this D20 dice bundle from Non Player Creation. The patches are inspired by the four seasons, but you could change up the colors to suit your campaign setting if you like. They are 31 by 35 stitches and use between nine and 12 colors depending on the season. 

And speaking of D20s, this little dragon might be protecting your dice or cursing them, it’s hard to tell. It’s kind of cute, though! The design is from Cross Stitch Wow and measures 80 by 95 stitches. It fits in an 8-inch hoop and uses 16 colors.