Designer Spotlight: TAM Stitch Designs

If you love pastels (and cross-stitched houses), TAM Stitch Designs has patterns for you. This collection of contemporary cross stitch patterns from the UK is heavy on cool colors, with calming designs involving flowers, beach scenes, little cottages and more.

The site is well organized to help you find just what you’re looking for, whether that’s a cross stitch pattern of a gnome (these are brighter colors than a lot of their designs), mandalas or fairies. In all there are more than 430 patterns as of this writing for you to choose from.

There are lots of variations on the seaside town with stacks of colorful little buildings along the water’s edge. I picked this one to share because it reminds me of a place I spent a summer a long time ago. Seaside Town is 200 by 200 stitches, which comes out to 14.25 by 14.25 inches, or 36.3 by 36.3 cm, if you use 14 count fabric. The pattern recommends working with an 18 inch piece of fabric to have a two-inch border on the sides, which makes framing that much easier. The description doesn’t say hoe many colors are used but it looks like a lot.

There’s also a whole section of cottagecore cross stitch patterns if that’s a style you’re into. Most of them are literally designs of cottages, but you’ll also find flowers, mushrooms, and even a design of a Victorian style bathtub.

As of this writing the designer offers volume discounts, with 30 percent off when you buy two patterns, 40 percent off when you buy three, and 50 percent off when you buy four at the same time. So if this is a vibe you like, visit their shop and stock up on patterns that will keep you busy (and chill with all those cool colors!) for a long time to come.

[Photo: TAM Stitch Designs]

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Cross Stitch Patterns Inspired by the Beach

I love seeing different ways that cross stitch can be worked on unusual surfaces, from strainers to chain link fences and more. One slightly more common way to add cross stitch to your home without using cross stitch fabric is to stitch on a chair base.

Chairs that have woven ratan backs and/or bases are a marker of mid-century design through the 1970s and ’80s, but there are a lot of options currently for sale if you don’t want to hunt one down at a vintage store or garage sale. Because the open blocks are built into the furniture, it’s not that difficult to imagine what cross stitch will look like on the surface.

If you have a chair you want to stitch on, or you just want to be inspired by other people’s work, check out this tutorial from Bobo Stitch all about how to stitch on a chair base. The chair they used has a round base and a long oval piece on the back of the chair that had space for stitching. (They found it on eBay.)

The post walks you through all the tools you will need to be able to cover your chair with cross stitch. They actually used ribbon to do the stitching, but you could use wool yarn or even thick cotton yarn if you wanted.

It doesn’t look like a super difficult project but I can see how it might be tedious because it’s not as easy to stitch on a chair as it is to stitch on fabric. And if you are doing a set of chairs this won’t be a quick project, but it’s well worth the effort if you want to add a bit of color and funky boho style to your chairs.

Would you do this to a chair? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

[Photo: Bobo Stitch]

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