Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

Designer Spotlight: The Sub Rosa Design

by

Traditional cross stitch designs and samplers with a primitive twist are the specialty of The Sub Rosa Design, an Etsy shop based in Hungary.

The largest section in the store is the Halloween/Thanksgiving section, which includes plenty of witches, crows and pumpkins. One that caught my eye is called Pumpkin Angel, a primitive design that looks like a woman with a pumpkin head with wings standing by a gate with pots of sunflowers.

The design is 199 by 67 stitches, which comes out to about 6.8 by 4 inches/17.5 by 10 cm stitched on 32 count linen as shown.

There are also a lot of Christmas patterns, heavy on Santa and snowmen and reindeer. The Easter and spring section includes projects with birds, lambs and rabbits with an old-fashioned feel.

There’s also a large number of sampler cross stitch patterns, taken from historical designs with their original stitchers names and dates on them. I like Lily Hall’s floral design that was originally stitched in 1884. It’s so fun to look at these (or stitch them!) and think about the women (or more accurately probably children learning to stitch) who made the originals and what their lives were like all those years ago. And how cool it is that we’re still doing the exact same thing all these years later!

In addition to holiday and sampler themed projects, there are also patriotic (Americana) designs, a few projects with bees, and a couple of patterns called Sweet Rosie, which seems to be a character stitched in the projects.

You can check out all of their designs at The Sub Rosa Design. If you check them out I’d love to know what patterns you try and how it goes for you!

Have a cross stitch designer you love who should be in the spotlight? Let me know in the comments.

[Photo: The Sub Rosa Design]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?

D&D Cross Stitch Patterns

My husband is a D&D player from way back and still does role playing with his friends most weekends. There are lots of great D&D cross stitch patterns, but somehow the ones that caught my eye this time have a theme of being about the D&D classes or involving dice (or both). 

I love this collection of the D&D classes done as tarot cards. These would be so fun to stitch up for all the people in your party, or make the full set as one big wall hanging for the game room. There are 16 patterns total (just a few are shown here) and each one just uses three colors. The designs are from GlitchStitchAU.

This set kind of reminds me of astrological signs, though I can’t really say why. This set of 16 designs from White Raven Patterns is color coordinated so it sort of makes a rainbow if you stitch all of them. The dungeon master one is more colorful. Each one uses five or six colors and fits in a 10-inch hoop. 

Combining character classes and dice we get this set of 14 designs from Stitch it Picasso. Each one includes the class name and a die with a number on it, as well as some images that make sense for that class (the bard has a lute and music notes, for example). Each design is around 90 by 90 stitches and they use 13 to 19 colors each, depending on the design. 

Or you can make patches that look like dice with this D20 dice bundle from Non Player Creation. The patches are inspired by the four seasons, but you could change up the colors to suit your campaign setting if you like. They are 31 by 35 stitches and use between nine and 12 colors depending on the season. 

And speaking of D20s, this little dragon might be protecting your dice or cursing them, it’s hard to tell. It’s kind of cute, though! The design is from Cross Stitch Wow and measures 80 by 95 stitches. It fits in an 8-inch hoop and uses 16 colors.