Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint
I know peonies aren’t in bloom this time of year, but they are lovely shapes to stitch any time.
This free pattern for a cross stitched peony from Sew and So is excerpted from the book Oriental Cross Stitch. Fun fact: the Chinese name for the peony is Sho Yo, meaning most beautiful.
I think the most beautiful part of this project is the backstitching worked in gold thread. If you change the colors when you make this one, keep that metallic element; it’s so lovely!
[Photo: Sew and So.]
I was recently doing a scroll through some crafting websites that I follow and I came across this amazing collection of cross stitch job patterns from Koekoek. It includes more than 100 different jobs, sports and hobbies, and these would be so much fun to personalize and stitch up for friends, family and co-workers.
You’ll find everything from occupations like doctor, fireman, maternity nurse, tax lawyer and librarian to sports like swimming, fishing and beach volleyball.
There’s pattern for watching marathon amounts of Netflix, doing triathlons (basically the same thing, right?), teaching geography, graphic design and catching Pokemon. Among many others.
The designs are categorized by medical professions, office jobs, stitch a sport (which includes other hobbies) and education professions, or you can just scroll through all the patterns to see the variety. Check out all the designs on their website, or scroll down on this page to see them in categories and with more details.
They suggest working these with a five inch hoop using 14 count cross stitch fabric or 28 count evenweave stitched over two threads for a fancier look. The number of colors needed for each design varies, but they are pretty small projects so there’s generally not a ton of detail.
The patterns also include text for what the image is showing like “the knitter” or “the veterinarian,” but they also have a post about how to personalize the designs with different text such as the person’s name, a date or a quote. There’s also a full bask stitch alphabet included in the post so you can chart out your own text.
And while the designs show specific people, you can change up details like hair color, clothing color and eye color if you want to make it look more like the person you intend to give it to. You can also purchase custom cross stitch kits from them to make the project exactly the way you want it without having to do the work yourself.
I think this is such a fun idea for a graduation gift or a holiday gift. If you check it out I’d love to know which characters you are stitching!
[Photo: Koekoek]