Designer Spotlight: Teeny Weeny XStitch

I have mentioned recently that I want to take on a large cross-stitch project this year, but the truth is most of the time I am drawn to projects on the other side of the size spectrum.

Tiny things are cute, and they’re quicker to make, so you can make more of them. Minis can be stitched up sampler style, added to bookmarks, made into pins or used in all sorts of other ways.

If you’re a fan of wee stitching, let me introduce you to Teeny Weeny XStitch on Etsy.

Designer Lior Zochovizky offers collections of little projects including seasonal designs, geeky stuff, sea animals, Greek gods and goddesses and more.

There are dinosaurs doing Christmas stuff. Animals in space. Seashells, science symbols and creepy cryptids.

You can also buy many of the patterns not as bundles, but if you’re getting one little design, why not get a bunch? There are also options for bundles than include 60+ patterns, and you can buy the whole shop in one bundle if you like minis even more than I do or just really want to support this designer.

One project of theirs I really wanted to point out is the magic potions temperature stitchalong. This project includes different styles of bottles lined up on shelves, and you can change up the style as you like and make the color of the potion the temperature it was each day where you live. (If you’re reading this around the time I posted it you still have time to catch up of the year! And of course these are minis so the whole year shouldn’t take that long, or you can do it for a special year in the past like when you got married or a child was born, etc.)

The full design is 180 by 300 stitches, which comes out to 12.9 by 31.4 inches, or 32.7 by 54.4 cm, on 14-count fabric (use 16 or 18 to make it smaller if you want). The number of colors varies depending on how granular you want to get and the range of temps where you live, but it can be up to 44 colors.

[Photo: Teeny Weeny XStitch]

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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