Designer Spotlight: White Protea Art

If you like your cross stitch patterns a little bit gothic but also a little bit cute, you’re going to want to meet Etsy seller White Protea Art.

Their designs are pretty firmly on the cute side of the creepy-cute divide, but the subject matter sometimes has a bit of a dark twist.

There are ghosts, but they’re the cutest little ghosts you’ve ever seen, living their best lives in the pumpkin patch, with a Santa hat, going camping, eating watermelon or reading a book. Sometimes the ghosts are cats.

You’ll find a witch frog in a cauldron, mushrooms growing from a book, a badger enjoying pumpkin ice cream.

But there’s also just plain cute animal cross stitch patterns, such as a pair of llamas for Valentine’s Day, a watercolor axolotl and kittens decorating a Christmas tree.

Lots of the patterns are seasonal, with a heavy emphasis on fall/Halloween and Christmas. In fact, all of the shop’s nearly 70 patterns as of this writing fall into five categories: summer, autumn, spring, Halloween and Christmas.

It’s hard to pick a representative example but here you’ll see the occult bookshelf, filled with books, pumpkins, potions and a few ghostie friends.

The pattern is 84 by 96 stitches, which comes out to 6 by 6.9 inches or 15.2 by 17.4 cm on 14 count fabric. It uses 17 colors and would be perfect for your bookcase or mantle during spooky season.

These patterns are adorable and if I had the time I’d do a whole series of ghosts, or all the mushroom patterns for my daughter’s room. If you like cottage core with a twist, you’ll love these projects.

Check out their whole shop at White Protea Art on Etsy.

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[Photo: White Protea Art]

As a knitter, I love a good sheep motif, so let’s take a look at some cute sheep cross stitch patterns.

If you want to stitch a little sheep, this mini square from Good Dog Needleworks is a nice choice. It uses just three colors and measures 32 by 32 stitches. That’s 2.2 inches or about 5.5 cm square if you stitch it on 14 count fabric.

I also love these two little sheep, which you can stitch together or in individual hoops and shown. The designs are form Threadbound Art and use six colors. They are slightly different in size, with one being 21 by 17 stitches and the other 21 by 20. They fit in four inch frames if you work them on 14 count fabric.

You can stitch a sweet sheep bookmark with this design from Kits by SA Stitch. This is not for the person who doesn’t like back stitch, because there’s a lot of that here, but it is really cute. It measures 30 by 91 stitches and uses 10 colors. That will make your bookmark about 2.4 by 6.5 inches, or 6 by 16.5 cm on 14 count fabric.

Stitch a pretty scene of sheep in a meadow with this design from Motok Nytok. It uses 21 colors and the design is 99 by 73 stitches. On 14 count fabric that makes it about 7.07 by 5.21 inches, or 17.96 by 13.24 cm.

This yarn full of cross stitch sheep has a bit of a knitting twist because the sheep all look like they have sweaters on. The design is from Soda Stitch Design and it measures 179 by 216 stitches. The full design uses 27 colors. On 14 count fabric it will work out to 12.78 by 15.42 inches, or 32.48 by 39.19 cm.

Another great one with a knitting theme is this one where the wool is coming off the sheep and straight onto the needles. This one is from Happy Cross Stitchers and uses 12 colors. The pattern is 137 by 137 stitches, which comes out to 9.7 inches or 24.86 cm square on 14 count fabric. This would be a fun one to stitch for the knitter in your life (even if that is you).

Or you can stitch the field of sheep of a knitter’s dreams with the Happy Sheep chart from Charts and Stuff. These per-colored sheep can be stitched as shown or worked in any colors you like. The eyes are French knots but you can just stitch them in white if you’d rather.

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