Stitch the 50 States in Cross Stitch

It feels like we’re going to be in our homes for a long time to come, so maybe it’s time for another quarantine project? I spent the first four months knitting a huge shawl, so maybe now I need an even bigger cross-stitch project, like this Beautiful USA design from Stitches Lovers Shop.

It’s actually 50 super detailed designs, one for each state of the country — also shaped like each state of the country.

The designs feature landscapes from each of the 50 states, and each state is stitched on its own. Stitch your favorite states or every state and make a huge gallery wall of cross-stitch.

The pattern for the full 50 states costs $50 on Etsy, or you can buy different versions of individual states for $4.80 each.

[Photo: Stitches Lovers Shop.]

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]

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