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]

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31+ Cross Stitch Ideas For Teacher Appreciation Gifts

I was trying to think of some different Christmas cross stitch pattern themes that I could share with you and I came up with wanting to do a post of patterns with ornaments on them that aren’t necessarily ornaments themselves.

This is a really hard term to search for, so I’m sure there is more than what I was able to find. But I love the idea of stitching up some ornaments if you don’t have space for a tree or want to send a little holiday cheer from afar. Let’s take a look at these cross stitch patterns featuring Christmas ornaments.

The bold baubles sampler from xCounting the Starsx is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. This set of 16 little ornaments would be cute propped up on a mantle or bookshelf, and of course you could stitch them individually and turn them into ornaments, too, if you wanted. The full design is 165 by 186 stitches and uses 30 colors.

If you want even more baubles that you can mix and match into your own sampler project, check out this collection from Mason Art Maison. It includes a whopping 140 cross stitch Christmas ornaments that you can combine or use on individual projects. I love the hand drawn and painted look of these. There are seven pages or ornaments, each of which is around 300 by 300 stitches, with the individual ornaments running around 70 by 70 stitches.

Looking for something smaller? This little branch with three ball ornaments from Wild Bluebell Patterns is super cute and just 59 by 43 stitches. It comes out to 4.2 by 3.1 inches (or 10.7 by 7.8 cm).

Or try this little bundle of three baubles from Ecliptica Design. They’re shown in individual frames but you could also line them up into one project. Each is 34 by 38 stitches, or 2.4 by 2.7 inches/6.2 by 6.9 cm. They use five colors and two blends each.

Snail Fishes Stitches also has a cute Christmas ornament cross stitch pattern with a variety of little ornaments. This one uses just three colors and is 63 by 64 stitches. It’s perfect for a 5 or 6 inch hoop if you stitch it on 14 count fabric.

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