Cross-Stitch

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Do You Use a Needle Minder?

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magnetic needle holder

After talking about waxing embroidery floss the other day, I got to thinking about other accessories or things that are optional but could potentially save you a lot of trouble when you’re doing cross stitch.

Another thing that falls into that category is a magnetic needle minder.

As you might guess from the name, these little gadgets stick to your cross stitch fabric by way of a magnet, then you can stick your needle to the top of the needle minder when you aren’t working so it won’t wander off/fall into the couch cushions when you aren’t working.

There are a lot of really cute needle minders out there these days. Swoodson Says has a fun collection of needle minders on her site you can browse, or search for them in your favorite place for indie crafts.

Do you use needle minders? Have a favorite kind? We’d love to hear all about it.

[Photo via Swoodson Says.]

Looking for more Fall-themed Cross-stitch patterns and charts? Check these out on Etsy.

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Comments

  1. I have never heard of a need minder. I’m so glad you mentioned it. I might just have to pick up one. I’ve been itching to embroider something lately…

  2. I’ve been cross stitching for decades but didn’t discover needle minders until recently (as in less than a year ago). I am absolutely hooked and have 4 currently. I’m always on the look out for more and I want to start getting into making them. The hard part for me is finding the right materials and pairing that with the right magnets.

Have you read?

Cross Stitch the National Parks in Tiny Form

I love little cross stitch patterns, but it’s especially fun when a small cross stitch design has a lot of detail going on. That’s the case with this collection of national parks cross stitch patterns from Stitchin Madness. 

This isn’t really a pattern, it’s a full-on book with designs for all 63 of the national parks in the United States (which includes the Virgin Islands). Each design is unique and shows a distinctive feature or the park or what the landscape there looks like. 

The book includes a full table of contents and numbered pages to make it easy to find the design you want to make. 

Each design is 40 by 40 stitches without the park name included, and 40 by 50 stitches if you add the name. They’re designed for 14 count fabric and if you make all of them you’ll use 72 colors, though each individual pattern uses a lot fewer colors than that. 

These would be so fun to make as you visit different parks, or make the whole set to frame together if you’re a big travel person who loves the national parks. They’d also be fun as greeting cards or even ornaments for your tree with the year you visited added to it somewhere. 

The photo above shows a nice collection of some of the patterns in hoops, but I could see them done in little frames as well. This should give you a taste for what the designs look like and might even include your favorite park (mine is Acadia because I went there on my honeymoon; it isn’t on here but you can see it on the product page. 

If you’re ready to stitch the national parks, or even just a handful of them, check out this pattern book from Stitchin Madness on Etsy. I’d love to know which national park is your favorite or what you would stitch up first!

[Photo: Stitchin Madness]