Designer Spotlight: Stitches Sew Beautiful

Super detailed, full coverage cross stitch designs are what you’ll find at the Etsy shop Stitches Sew Beautiful. Many of the designs are created from digital art (with permission from the original artist, of course) making the designs incredibly detailed and using lots of different colors.

These are definitely projects for experienced stitches who are up for a challenge. Not all of the patterns say how many colors would be needed but as an example that did, the pretty dragon pattern shown above calls for 100 colors. The design is 300 by 400 stitches. If my math works, on 14 count fabric it would be 21.4 by 28.5 inches, or 54.3 by 72.4 cm. But it’s gorgeous and definitely worth the work for a dragon lover. (By the way this is designed by ArtMariska/Maria Szollosi.)

A lot of the patterns tend toward fantasy. There are lots of dragons, fairies and angels, but also plenty of holiday themed projects (both Krampus and Santa, and a few other holidays, too).

Other than the holiday patterns, the designs are organized by the original artist, which means browsing is in order to see what all is available and what you might like to stitch. Bill Bell offers incredibly detailed, cartoonish city scenes that become a bit of a where’s Waldo scene looking at all the details that are included. Karla Gerard’s designs have more of a folk art feel, while Sphinx Design Studio brings a steampunk flair and a bit of pop culture, with designs inspired by “Wednesday,” “Good Omens” and the like.

I guess all of that is a long way of saying sharing one photo from this shop doesn’t do it justice or allow you to explore the variety of artists and styles represented. So go check out the shop on Etsy and find something you’ll love to stitch!

[Photo: Stitches Sew Beautiful]

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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