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]

One of the easiest ways to make a cross stitch project more personal is to add text to it. Whether you’re adding the names of people getting married to a generic floral cross stitch design, birth information to a project on theme with the new baby’s room or just adding a word or phrase that’s meaningful to you, adding words to cross stitch projects make them that much more special.

But if you’re not working with a project that already has text built in, or you want to change the text that’s there, that can feel a little daunting.

Caterpillar Cross Stitch has a great guide to adding names and words (as well as numbers) to projects, which talks you through what to consider and how to actually go about adding text to a cross stitch project successfully.

You’ll need to think about what kind of font you want to use and if you’re using back stitched letters or larger filled letters, how much space you need and how the letters work together in the text you’re planning to make sure it’s readable.

Their post includes common pitfalls such as running out a space or ending up with text that’s off center and how to avoid them (spoiler: chart out your text before you stitch!).

The whole post is really helpful if you’ve never added lettering to a project before and don’t know where to start. I like to use block letters in back stitch when learning how to add text to cross stitch, but of course there are tons of lettering options. Check out this collection of cross stitch fonts if you want to see some different things you can try.

And head over to Caterpillar Cross Stitch to get more tips for how to successfully add lettering to your cross stitch projects. They also have their own alphabet and number charts you can buy to add text to your stitching.

Have you ever added text to a cross stitch project? I’d love to hear how it went!

[Photo: Caterpillar Cross Stitch]

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