Designer Spotlight: StitchxFinch

I generally don’t share Etsy shops that are as small as this one — it only has 24 patterns as I write this — but I did want to share it just because there’s a story behind it for me.

When I came across this shop in my scrolling, I saw this pattern for a little bird dressed like a cowboy. This caught my eye because it’s a finch that looks sort of like a character from the app Finch.

If you don’t know about Finch, it’s a self-care app where you set up different tasks that you do for yourself (the baseline is literally surviving the day, but also things like brushing teeth, making your bed, etc.) and as you do more things your little finch avatar grows and you can give it outfits and toys and it goes on adventures and it’s adorable. It also really helps people who struggle with mental health and doing the basic things, because it feels like you’re taking care of something else instead of just taking care of yourself.

Anyway, this little guy is 50 by 50 stitches, and comes out to 3.57 inches or 9.07 cm on 14 count fabric. And it’s a pretty good example of the style of the patterns StitchxFinch does.

There are cute little frogs and cats and a cow getting abducted by aliens. There are adorable little animals wielding knives for some reason. A flying pig. Anne of Green Gables. The Grim Reaper watering a plant. There’s a whole range of designs even with this small selection, but the vast majority of them involve little animals in some way.

If you like this style of cute little critters, check out StitchxFinch on Etsy. And especially if you or someone you know uses the app Finch, does this little one remind you of that?

[Photo: StitchxFinch]

I’m going to go ahead and admit that I totally missed Toy Story 4, so it took my by surprise when Toy Story 5 came out, but let’s celebrate with some Toy Story cross stitch patterns.

This sweet design including Woody, Buzz and Jessie is from The Xstitch Shop, and they actually have a few different Toy Story options. This one says it is for intermediate stitches, probably because of the size and number of colors, but the sales page doesn’t say how big it is or how many colors it uses. It’s still cute, though!

If you’ve got a fan of Jessie in your household, this collection of Jessie themed icons is super cute to stitch. The design is from Mercury Stitches and it measures 97 by 144 stitches. that comes out to 6.9 by 10.3 inches, or 17.6 by 26.1 cm, and uses 11 colors. It has full and half cross stitches, as well as back stitching and French knots.

Share the love of friendship with this sweet Woody and Buzz heart hands cross stitch pattern from Pixell Patterns. This design uses eight colors and is shown worked on 14 count fabric, but the notes don’t indicate how bit is is (based on a finished project photo, though, it looks pretty big).

And for the Buzz Lightyear fans, of course we have to have a “To infinity and beyond” pattern, so here’s one from Silver Lake Stitches. This design is super cute on blue fabric, but use whatever you have. It measures 78 by 92 stitches, which comes out to 5.6 by 6.6 inches, or 14.2 by 16.7 cm, on 14 count fabric. It calls for 14 colors.

Or if you want to go beyond the core three main character toys, check out this project from ThreeOOne Patterns, which includes our main toys as well as Bo Peep and her sheep, Bullseye the horse, the Slinky dog, Rex, Ham, the Potato Heads and an alien. The design is 310 by 80 stitches, which comes out to 21.14 by 3.5 inches, or 53.7 by 8.9 cm, when worked on 14 count fabric. It uses 65 colors. Or pick out your favorite characters to make a smaller project.

All those characters and a few more are found on the mini Toy Story character sampler from Knotalot UK (only part of which is shown above). This one uses 31 colors and measures 134 by 108 stitches. It includes whole and fractional stitches, as well as back stitching. On 14 count fabric stitching the whole thing would make a project that’s 9.57 by 7.71 inches, or 24.31 by 19.59 cm.

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