Designer Spotlight: Whoopicat

If you’re a fan of art nouveau, art deco or the arts and crafts period in design, have I got a treat for you today. Etsy seller Whoopicat is based in Michigan and makes glorious stitched reproductions of classic designs, as well as projects inspired by vintage illustrations.

Sometimes I don’t even know where to begin or what one photo to share with you when I’m writing these posts, and that’s definitely the case this time around. Historic botanical prints? Golden age illustrations? Reproductions of William Morris wallpaper designs? Early 1900s French fashion illustrations? There’s so much to like and make me wish my cross stitch skills were a little more than what they are so I would feel up to stitching any of these.

OK. How about this mandala cross stitch design based on a circular design of Christopher Dresser’s? He was an English designer in the late 1800s who was quite influential in the Aesthetic movement.

The design looks complex, but because it’s symmetrical it’s not as difficult as some of the others, and it only uses 10 colors. You can keep it in the tones of yellow, red and blue shown, or adjust it to suit your space better. (The whole idea of aestheticism is to make something beautiful, after all!) It measures 173 by 173 stitches, or 12.36 inches/31.4 cm square. It’s a great size for a pillow or a wall hanging.

If this sort of style appeals to you at all, you should definitely spend some time browsing around to find your favorites. (They have more than 700 designs as of this writing.)

And lest you think it’s all high art, there’s a fun collection of vintage and vintage-inspired holiday designs, too. I’m partial to this one developed from a postcard showing a bunch of black cats in front of a jack o’lantern.

Check out all their designs at Whoopicat on Etsy.

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Stitch Samplers and Other Historic Inspired Designs

I recently wrote a post on my blog about using a stitchable journal cover and I mentioned that you can make your own stitched cover for a journal by using perforated paper instead of buying a stitchable notebook.

I have to admit, though, that I’ve never used perforated paper for cross stitch myself. I definitely want to because I think it would be great to use for bookmarks that don’t fray and have a little more stability, for example.

Sirious Stitches has us covered, though, because they did a deep dive into all things perforated cross stitch pattern that is worth the time to read through.

The post mentions that a lot of people use perforated paper for cross stitch because they buy an ornament kit that uses it. I’ve never seen these (or at least never noticed that that is what they were) but it’s a great idea to make small projects like ornaments in this way. It also talks about the pros and cons of using cross stitch paper, where to buy it and how to make your own.

Making it yourself is an awesome idea because if you already have a pattern in mind you can just make holes in your paper where you need stitches to be and leave the rest solid. This would be ideal for making greeting cards, for example.

In addition to kits and sheets you can often find the paper pre-cut into different shapes you can use to make your own designs, no real pattern required.

The post also includes tips and advice for how to stitch on perforated paper that you’ll want to check out before you try your first project.

I’m super intrigued by the idea of using perforated paper for cross stitch and will probably be trying it out soon. Have you used it before? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Check out the post over at Sirious Stitches for more information.

[Photo: Sirious Stitches]

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