Get Primitive Style Cross Stitch Patterns from Scattered Seeds Samplers

I don’t know if I know what the real definition of primitive cross stitch is, but to me it means patterns that look old-fashioned, like colonial American-era samplers stitched on muslin or Bible quotes stitched alongside flowers and animals.

So pretty much exactly the designs from Scattered Seed Samplers. This Etsy shop has more than 80 cross stitch patterns available for shipping, from historical samplers to birds, bunnies, flowers, patterns with words and those without.

Since it’s fall as I write this I wanted to highlight the Hannah’s Thankful Heart pattern, which features a turkey, flowers and the phrase “Give Thanks with a Joyful Heart.” The turkey’s wing has the year 1621 stitched on it, which is the year of the first “Thanksgiving,” but you could leave that off if you don’t think that particular date is worth remembering.

It is 133 by 72 stitches and shown worked on 35ct. Weeks Dye Works fabric. It uses 10 colors and the design comes out to 8.31 by 4.5 inches when stitched. The designer recommends a 9 by 5 inch piece of fabric to have space around the design when you display it or turn it into a pillow as shown.

A lot of the designs here are billed as pinkeepers, and you can see that this one is, too, because it has some pins in it in the photo, but you could just use it as a display pillow rather than a pincushion if you’d rather. Some of the designs make strawberry shaped pin cushions, which is a cute spin on the classic mass produced tomato pin cushion.

I also love the Miss Isabelle Black pattern, which is a black cat wearing a dress and cardigan, holding a candy pumpkin, and visiting with some of her crow and mouse friends. It’s a fun one for Halloween that doesn’t scream spooky season but still has a touch of Halloween spirit.

Scattered Seed Samplers patterns ship from Wisconsin.

[Photo: Scattered Seed Samplers.]

One of the easiest ways to make a cross stitch project more personal is to add text to it. Whether you’re adding the names of people getting married to a generic floral cross stitch design, birth information to a project on theme with the new baby’s room or just adding a word or phrase that’s meaningful to you, adding words to cross stitch projects make them that much more special.

But if you’re not working with a project that already has text built in, or you want to change the text that’s there, that can feel a little daunting.

Caterpillar Cross Stitch has a great guide to adding names and words (as well as numbers) to projects, which talks you through what to consider and how to actually go about adding text to a cross stitch project successfully.

You’ll need to think about what kind of font you want to use and if you’re using back stitched letters or larger filled letters, how much space you need and how the letters work together in the text you’re planning to make sure it’s readable.

Their post includes common pitfalls such as running out a space or ending up with text that’s off center and how to avoid them (spoiler: chart out your text before you stitch!).

The whole post is really helpful if you’ve never added lettering to a project before and don’t know where to start. I like to use block letters in back stitch when learning how to add text to cross stitch, but of course there are tons of lettering options. Check out this collection of cross stitch fonts if you want to see some different things you can try.

And head over to Caterpillar Cross Stitch to get more tips for how to successfully add lettering to your cross stitch projects. They also have their own alphabet and number charts you can buy to add text to your stitching.

Have you ever added text to a cross stitch project? I’d love to hear how it went!

[Photo: Caterpillar Cross Stitch]

Have you read?