Designer Spotlight: Stitch and Poke Company

Get your salty cross stitch patterns right here, from Stitch and Poke Company on Etsy.

There’s literally one about staying salty, which is about 8 inches on 18 count fabric, and looks great on dark colored fabric.

I first heard of Stitch and Poke when I was looking for Marvelous Mrs. Maisel cross stitch patterns, because they have one of those, as well as patterns related to Harry Potter and Schitt’s Creek, among other fandoms.

There are also some holiday patterns, patterns having to do with sage smudging, positive thinking and pets, among other things. Most of the patterns are great for beginner to intermediate stitchers and don’t use a ton of colors in each design.

Another one that I really like is the pattern pictured above, which is a cross-stitch illustration of a coffee plant in bloom. This is another one that looks good on a dark colored fabric, but you could do it on a lighter one instead if you’d rather. This one also calls for 18 count fabric and fits in an 8-inch hoop. It has a lot of details including backstitching on the leaves, so it’s rated for intermediate stitchers. I might be tempted to throw in some French knots, too, even if they’re not botanically correct.

In addition to buying charts alone, there are also cross stitch kits available for a few of their designs, which include fabric, hoop, floss and a needle as well as a printed copy of the pattern.

They also have listings for some notions, a couple of knitting patterns and a handful of handmade goods as well, so there’s lot of fun stuff to see.

Do you design cross stitch patterns or have a designer whose patterns you love to stitch? Click on “Suggest a diy” at the top of the page and tell me all about it!

[Photo: Stitch and Poke Company]

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Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Cross Stitch Patterns

I love the look of variegated cross stitch floss and how it makes it possible to stitch with a variety of colors without changing thread, giving your project more depth and a more complex look without you having to do anything different.

Or at least not much different. I recently came across this blog post from The Copper Fox all about how to use variegated floss and it noted that many people would say it’s a good idea to complete a whole stitch (when you’re stitching whole cross stitches) with the floss before going on to the next stitch. Most of us stitch row by row, but of course if you do that with variegated yarn, it could change color along the way and you’ll end up with stitches that are half one color and half another color or a different shade.

Of course that makes total sense but I’d never thought about it.

The post includes swatches with different kinds of variegated threads to show the different between working stitch by stitch or row by row, and it doesn’t make a huge different over the small area shown but I can see how it might make a difference if you had really long rows or if you just want to make sure your stitches are a single color whenever possible.

In addition to this experiment, the post talks about other ways to work with multicolored floss, including deliberately mixing the colors among the strands of floss you are stitching with and stitching in a different order instead of right to left and top to bottom (or whatever direction you typically work) to get different effects from the thread.

It’s fun to geek out on this stuff because it can make a difference if you want to play with it, or you can just stitch on without giving it much thought, and both will give you good results.

Check out all the experiments at The Copper Fox.

Do you do anything different when you stitch with variegated floss? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: The Copper Fox]

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