Designer Spotlight: Wonder Stitch UA

Wonder Stitch UA is more than just a shop that sells cross stitch patterns. They also sell hoops, organizers and accessories for your projects, as well as individual patterns.

The biggest section of patterns in the shop is holiday, which includes Halloween and Christmas. I also saw a few other holidays like St. Patrick’s Day and Mother’s Day, as well as some designs that I would just call seasonal.

For example there’s a series of these little forest spirit designs; this one is for fall. The pattern describes it as a kind of “forest fairy animal.” Its eyes are slightly unsettling, but I like the rest of it. The design is 85 by 88 stitches, and the notes don’t indicate how many colors are used but it looks like a fair number.

Moving on from holidays, you’ll also find a lot of floral cross stitch designs, which are mostly realistic renderings of different kinds of flowers; and animal patterns, heavy on watercolors, cutesy designs and a few more realistic patterns, too.

Another big category is the full coverage designs (meaning that the whole fabric is covered with stitching rather than having some white space). This section covers a wide variety of patterns, from still lifes to animals, landscapes and holiday scenes. There are a lot of cats.

Because the shop is based in Ukraine I need to point out their Ukrainian patterns, which include folk designs, flowers, the Ukraine coat of arms and more.

In addition there are landscapes, nautical patterns, gnomes, birds and insects, houses and people.

Beyond all that there’s a bunch of fun products for cross stitching. The kits section includes lots of great blanks you can use for cross stitching, from key ring blanks to bracelets and passport covers (there are also some cute thread organizers). They have an array of magnetic hoops that can be used to frame cross stitch, project bags and organizers to drape over your chair and more.

And because these are the times we live in, there’s even a section of products that are already in the United States so we can support them and save on shipping costs at the same time.

Head to Wonder Stitch UA to see all the fun stuff and patterns they have available.

[Photo: Wonder Stitch UA]

I was recently approached by Alyssa, the cross stitcher behind the Etsy shop Stitchonomy, to take a look at her cross stitch pattern subscription club, known as The Pattern Club.

I took a look around and there’s a lot of cute stuff and fun options you’ll want to check out, especially if you love themed patterns that are small, easy to stitch and fun to combine.

The Pattern Club combines cross stitching with a social network. When you open the site you’ll see a news feed and have the ability to share updates much like you would on Facebook. You can see who is online, have buddies and post your own updates and photos. The community aspect is a little sparse right now but that should only grow.

The stitch along hub is the place to find the most recent patterns and information on the current stitchalong. As of this writing the Book Lover’s stitchalong was happening, with little designs like Peter Rabbit, a skull for Hamlet and keys for Jane Eyre as well as authors including Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen.

Other pattern collections include European designs, Halloween, ocean life, an allotment garden and more. Alyssa tells me there’s a new theme every month that either she picks or members in the community suggest. You can stitch just the patterns you want or put them together to make a larger collage.

The Stitchanomini vault gives you access to all of the previous patterns, and new patterns are released daily through the stitchalong. You can download individual patterns (most of them are 19 by 19 stitches) as PDFs or Pattern Keeper files. The PDFs include a color and black and white chart as well as a floss list.

Another cool thing you can do is build your own pattern collages from all of the squares that have been released. The collage configurator allows you to add patterns of your choosing to a grid ranging from 2×2 patterns up to 4×4. You can scroll through all the current patterns or search by theme and size to make a project that suits your needs. (Above is an example I made kind of at random but you get the idea.)

If you want to check it out, you can grab a three-day free trial and see all the pattern options. Membership is $7.99 a month, or if you pay for a year at a time you’ll get two months free. In addition to the patterns in the club, members receive discounts on patterns and supplies purchased through the shop within the club. Annual members get access to three paid/retired stitchalongs and lifetime members receive all retired patterns.

If you check it out I’d love to hear what you think!

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