If you’re a fan of ornamental folk cross stitch designs, you’ll want to check out Stone Street Stitchworks, an Etsy designer based in Houston, Texas.
According to their shop description, they feature designs with an “ornamental country style” inspired by cottages, country landscapes, primitive and folk art, as well as Americana and samplers from the colonial and Quaker eras, and American and European samplers.
As of this writing they have a little more than 30 designs, which definitely have an early America feel to them.
I love the Day to Night pattern, which features a little house and a big sky changing from day to night that looks like quilt blocks. There are actually several patterns that feature stars or snowflakes or other designs evocative of quilt blocks or knitting colorwork designs, which just goes to show that all crafts are connected.
There are historical samplers as well as designs made with more modern quotes (like “The time is always right to do what is right” from Martin Luther King, Jr.). And of course the one pictured, called Bookhouse, which features a quote from Neil Gaiman: “I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.”
The design features two trees (the leaves are meant to evoke books) and a tall house with a light left on in a window for the reader in the house (which looks a little bit like a TARDIS, though I don’t know if that’s intentional). The design was inspired by classic book covers. It measures 93 by 81 stitches, or 5.8 by 5.1 inches (14.7 by 12.9 cm) when worked on 16 count fabric and uses only full stitches and some back stitching on the book spines.
This would be a great one for a library or to put on a bookshelf.
You can check out all the designs with a classic feel even though they might have modern content at the Stone Street Stitchworks Etsy shop.
[Photo: Stone Street Stitchworks]
