Retro Cross Stitch Patterns

I don’t know why sometimes random things catch my eye and I decide to do a post about them, but it gives you a little peek into my world and what I’m thinking about, so we’ll go with it.

I think the original design that got me thinking about retro cross stitch patterns was shown to me on Pinterest when I was looking for something else, and I filed it away as something I wanted to post about at some point. As a child of the ’80s I love these designs, and the colors are a lot of fun even if you don’t remember that era. Or you can stitch them for your parents LOL.

The first one was this set of retro TV cross stitch patterns from The Pixel Cottage on Etsy. It shows the test pattern, a fuzzy screen and random pixels that you just had to be there to experience. The full design is 51 by 56 stitches (or about 3.6 by 4 inches) and uses nine colors. These would be cute stitched individually, too.

Home Sewn Stitches on Etsy has another cute collection of retro patterns, but in this case its a set of six designs for a Rubik’s cube, television, floppy disk, slatted sunglasses (don’t even ask), a boombox and a cassette tape (with pencil, of course!). Each of these designs fits in an 8-inch hoop, and they’d be perfect to stitch up for your TV room.

If classic cassettes are your style, Tiny Modernist has a cross stitch pattern that is just cassette tapes with different colors. You can stitch them all together in one project or make them separately. A single one would be perfect to stitch for a birthday card for a friend of a certain age. The full design is 64 by 96 stitches, or about 4.6 by 7.9 inches on 14 count fabric.

Artmishka Cross Stitch is an Etsy shop based in Italy with lots of whimsical and colorful designs and an emphasis on animals, flowers and landscapes. Let’s take a closer look!

The animal section is by far the largest, and it includes everything from realistic birds to cartoony cats, a set of little chick ornaments for Easter and a blackwork butterfly, to name a few. There are little animals in clothes and scarves, and this sweet folk art style owl in modern colors.

This one (and lots of them, really, I think) was designed as nursery decor, and it calls for 10 colors, which you can of course change up to suit your decor, nursery or otherwise. The design is 95 by 95 stitches, which comes out to about 7 inches or 18 cm square on 14 count fabric or 28 count evenweave stitched over two strands.

Another large category is flowers, which includes birth month flower designs, flowers that look hand drawn and colored, floral wreaths with teapots and wedding floral cross stitch designs.

The sampler section includes a variety of small patterns, images with words, colorful geometric and floral designs, and a few holiday patterns. Christmas designs include stamps, Christmas trees, stocking, snowmen and a cute box of snowflake shaped Christmas cookies in a box with a mug of hot chocolate, to name a few designs.

There are also a fair number of designs in both the landscape and cottage categories. These include iconic landmarks and colorful sunsets, and buildings from beach houses to a mushroom cottage, book shop and a cottage with flowers bursting out of the roof. There’s also a section called girl, which has designs of a little girl in different outfits and situations and some other characters.

Other categories on the site with smaller numbers of patterns include boy designs, princesses, plants, hobby themed designs (sewing, knitting, baking), art and bookmarks. There are also a handful of cross stitch kits, all of the little girl character.

Check out all of the fun designs at Artmishka Cross Stitch.

[Photo: Artmishka Cross Stitch]

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