Designer Spotlight: SchilHaus

Normally when I decide to write about a cross stitch designer I like them to have a good number of patterns that I can talk about. It helps you to see a range of options if you’re looking for a new designer to follow, and it gives me more to write about, which is a win.

But I wanted to share SchilHaus with you even though they only have 11 patterns because they’re just so darn cheerful and I think we all need that.

All of their patterns are similar in color and tone. Some are lines or squares, there are a few quilt-block-style stars, a red and green snowflake that also looks like a star and is the only project of theirs to only use two colors.

There are abstract rainbow polka dots and a colorful set of Christmas bobbles.

The design of theirs that originally caught my eye was one full of multicolored lines, but the one I decided to write about when I was looking at their storefront most recently is the Rainbow Breeze Block.

The pattern has these fun petal-shaped cells surrounded by black to make them really pop. There are two color options in the pattern, but what struck me about this one is that you could do it as a temperature project if you just kept repeating it until the end of the year.

Decide on what colors you want to use for whatever it is you’re tracking and then do a petal a day. You’d need to do rows of 5 instead of 8 to make the rows even or you can leave it as 8 and have some blanks.

(Check out more temperature cross stitch projects.)

Despite the small number of patterns I think SchilHaus is definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of color, abstract design or Christmas projects. Let me know what you think!

[Photo: SchilHaus]

As a knitter, I love a good sheep motif, so let’s take a look at some cute sheep cross stitch patterns.

If you want to stitch a little sheep, this mini square from Good Dog Needleworks is a nice choice. It uses just three colors and measures 32 by 32 stitches. That’s 2.2 inches or about 5.5 cm square if you stitch it on 14 count fabric.

I also love these two little sheep, which you can stitch together or in individual hoops and shown. The designs are form Threadbound Art and use six colors. They are slightly different in size, with one being 21 by 17 stitches and the other 21 by 20. They fit in four inch frames if you work them on 14 count fabric.

You can stitch a sweet sheep bookmark with this design from Kits by SA Stitch. This is not for the person who doesn’t like back stitch, because there’s a lot of that here, but it is really cute. It measures 30 by 91 stitches and uses 10 colors. That will make your bookmark about 2.4 by 6.5 inches, or 6 by 16.5 cm on 14 count fabric.

Stitch a pretty scene of sheep in a meadow with this design from Motok Nytok. It uses 21 colors and the design is 99 by 73 stitches. On 14 count fabric that makes it about 7.07 by 5.21 inches, or 17.96 by 13.24 cm.

This yarn full of cross stitch sheep has a bit of a knitting twist because the sheep all look like they have sweaters on. The design is from Soda Stitch Design and it measures 179 by 216 stitches. The full design uses 27 colors. On 14 count fabric it will work out to 12.78 by 15.42 inches, or 32.48 by 39.19 cm.

Another great one with a knitting theme is this one where the wool is coming off the sheep and straight onto the needles. This one is from Happy Cross Stitchers and uses 12 colors. The pattern is 137 by 137 stitches, which comes out to 9.7 inches or 24.86 cm square on 14 count fabric. This would be a fun one to stitch for the knitter in your life (even if that is you).

Or you can stitch the field of sheep of a knitter’s dreams with the Happy Sheep chart from Charts and Stuff. These per-colored sheep can be stitched as shown or worked in any colors you like. The eyes are French knots but you can just stitch them in white if you’d rather.

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