Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

Designer Spotlight: Whoopicat

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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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Toy Story Cross Stitch Patterns

I’m going to go ahead and admit that I totally missed Toy Story 4, so it took my by surprise when Toy Story 5 came out, but let’s celebrate with some Toy Story cross stitch patterns. 

This sweet design including Woody, Buzz and Jessie is from The Xstitch Shop, and they actually have a few different Toy Story options. This one says it is for intermediate stitches, probably because of the size and number of colors, but the sales page doesn’t say how big it is or how many colors it uses. It’s still cute, though!

If you’ve got a fan of Jessie in your household, this collection of Jessie themed icons is super cute to stitch. The design is from Mercury Stitches and it measures 97 by 144 stitches. that comes out to 6.9 by 10.3 inches, or 17.6 by 26.1 cm, and uses 11 colors. It has full and half cross stitches, as well as back stitching and French knots. 

Share the love of friendship with this sweet Woody and Buzz heart hands cross stitch pattern from Pixell Patterns. This design uses eight colors and is shown worked on 14 count fabric, but the notes don’t indicate how bit is is (based on a finished project photo, though, it looks pretty big). 

And for the Buzz Lightyear fans, of course we have to have a “To infinity and beyond” pattern, so here’s one from Silver Lake Stitches. This design is super cute on blue fabric, but use whatever you have. It measures 78 by 92 stitches, which comes out to 5.6 by 6.6 inches, or 14.2 by 16.7 cm, on 14 count fabric. It calls for 14 colors. 

Or if you want to go beyond the core three main character toys, check out this project from ThreeOOne Patterns, which includes our main toys as well as Bo Peep and her sheep, Bullseye the horse, the Slinky dog, Rex, Ham, the Potato Heads and an alien. The design is 310 by 80 stitches, which comes out to 21.14 by 3.5 inches, or 53.7 by 8.9 cm, when worked on 14 count fabric. It uses 65 colors. Or pick out your favorite characters to make a smaller project. 

All those characters and a few more are found on the mini Toy Story character sampler from Knotalot UK (only part of which is shown above). This one uses 31 colors and measures 134 by 108 stitches. It includes whole and fractional stitches, as well as back stitching. On 14 count fabric stitching the whole thing would make a project that’s 9.57 by 7.71 inches, or 24.31 by 19.59 cm.