Stitch Designs with a Classic Look from Kathy Barrick

Today’s designer spotlight is on Kathy Barrick, a designer based in Maryland who gives a classic look to her projects.

When I opened her Etsy shop one of the first designs I saw was this one all about different words for blue, which I thought was funny because my daughter’s school lets the teachers teach whatever they want for the last two weeks of school and one of the teachers last year taught a class on the history of blue. Which seemed kind of weird to me but apparently there’s a lot to know about blue, and this particular project was inspired by a book written by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1814 all about blue.

In addition to that you’ll find alphabet samplers, old-fashioned birds, classic holiday themed projects and more.

Another one that caught my eye was this autumn themed pin drum, which is apparently just a different size and shape of pincushion (I got excited for a second thinking it was for knitting needle storage, since knitting needles used to be called pins). It uses five colors and measures 170 by 78 stitches and has a cute little velvet pumpkin on top, so it’s useful and decorative.

Since I’m writing and sharing this around Halloween I also can’t resist pointing out the Halloween birthday sampler, which would be fun to make for anyone born in October or who loves spooky season. It features a witch in a graveyard with cats and bats and it would be fun to stitch that part even without the words around it. Or make it just as it is even if you don’t know someone born on Halloween! It uses 14 colors (she used silk but there’s a DMC conversion as well) and measures 106 by 82 stitches.

Check out all of her pretty, classic designs at her shop on Etsy.

[Photo: Kathy Barrick]

Next Pattern:

Cross Stitch for Women's History Month

I recently wrote a post on my blog about using a stitchable journal cover and I mentioned that you can make your own stitched cover for a journal by using perforated paper instead of buying a stitchable notebook.

I have to admit, though, that I’ve never used perforated paper for cross stitch myself. I definitely want to because I think it would be great to use for bookmarks that don’t fray and have a little more stability, for example.

Sirious Stitches has us covered, though, because they did a deep dive into all things perforated cross stitch pattern that is worth the time to read through.

The post mentions that a lot of people use perforated paper for cross stitch because they buy an ornament kit that uses it. I’ve never seen these (or at least never noticed that that is what they were) but it’s a great idea to make small projects like ornaments in this way. It also talks about the pros and cons of using cross stitch paper, where to buy it and how to make your own.

Making it yourself is an awesome idea because if you already have a pattern in mind you can just make holes in your paper where you need stitches to be and leave the rest solid. This would be ideal for making greeting cards, for example.

In addition to kits and sheets you can often find the paper pre-cut into different shapes you can use to make your own designs, no real pattern required.

The post also includes tips and advice for how to stitch on perforated paper that you’ll want to check out before you try your first project.

I’m super intrigued by the idea of using perforated paper for cross stitch and will probably be trying it out soon. Have you used it before? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Check out the post over at Sirious Stitches for more information.

[Photo: Sirious Stitches]

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