Seasonal Cross Stitch with a Primitive Spin

This week’s designed spotlight is on Twin Peak Primitives, the design home for a duo of twin sisters from the Netherlands. Their work covers a lot of different subjects, including holidays, American patriotic designs, sampler-style stitches and more.

Since I’m writing this before Halloween, I wanted to point out in particular their Halloween designs. (Links here are Etsy links, but you can also buy direct from their website if you’re in Europe.)

They recently released a new Gothic Halloween collection for 2023 that includes nine different Halloween patterns, all worked in black. There are mini samplers, a biscornu, a triangular design and some small ornaments. The designs include a sampler with the alphabet and skulls, a Gothic crow, a threatening bee, the witches of Salem, a creepy wedding ceremony, another alphabet design with a witch on a broom and pumpkins, a pumpkin with skulls on its surface, a larger skull design and the biscornu, which has a geometric design.

There’s also a haunted chateau design that features a spooky looking house surrounded by crows, nights, and other details, along with an alphabet, the word Halloween and the year. In all they have 31 Halloween designs, which you can find here. A couple more of my favorites are the bus going to Salem and Silent Phantoms of the Night, but be sure to scroll through if you’re looking for new designs for the season.

In addition to the Halloween designs there are lots of American themed patriotic designs and pastoral scenes, winter and Christmas designs, and lots of mini collections with small patterns on a theme, like gingerbread, St. Patrick’s Day and holiday ornaments.

On their website they also have a nice collection of freebie patterns, most of which have a holiday theme. You’ll find some cute fall and Halloween designs there as well.

[Photo: Twin Peak Primitives]

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American Flag Cross Stitch Patterns

I’m primarily a knitter, and in the knitting world the “emotional support chicken” has been a big trend probably for a couple of years now (I don’t know how long something has to be popular before you can stop calling it a trend, but whatever).

There are chicken crochet patterns that are popular as well, and now I’ve found a cross stitch chicken pattern that might just become the newest iteration of the emotional support chicken theme.

The Funky Chickens pattern from Satsuma Street are three-dimensional, triangular chickens embellished with felt to make their facial features and tail feathers. The bodies include stripes, curves, speckles and other little designs to mark different parts of their bodies. They’re super cute and not any more difficult to stitch than any other pattern, though of course there’s more finishing than you would normally expect.

The pattern includes designs for three chickens, which are actually a rooster and two hens. The rooster is slightly larger, at 120 by 60 stitches, or 4 by 4 inches/10 cm when finished. The hens are 100 by 50 stitches and come out to 3.25 inches/8 cm when finished. These measurements are for stitching on 14 count fabric or 28 count over two.

The patterns use 13 colors, and if you want to make all three, one skein of each color will make all of them. In addition to your regular cross stitch supplies you’ll need three or four little pieces of felt of different colors to add all the details.

These chickens would be great to use as pincushions, or you could put something heavy in the bottom and use them as pattern weights if you do sewing. They’d also be fun gifts for anyone who likes chickens or needs a little emotional support if you explain it to them.

The pattern is available from Satsuma Street on Etsy.

[Photo: Satsuma Street]

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