Stitch Up a Fun Halloween Sampler

Need a simple Halloween project to make for spooky season? This Halloween sampler cross stitch pattern from Anchor might be just the thing.

The design is made up of six horizontal panels that you can stitch separately or all together to make the sampler. The designs include:

cauldrons, potions and skulls and cross bones
the word Halloween worked in multiple colors
gravestones, crosses and witch hats
a spiderweb with spiders
ghosts, bats and the word boo
more graves and crosses with pumpkins this time

Each section is divided by simple two-color rows (I love how the bats hang off the row above them!). The individual sections could be worked horizontally or vertically to make Halloween bookmarks or other projects.

As shown the full design is 71 by 85 stitches and it is worked in six colors. Worked on 14 count fabric it comes out to about 5 by 6 inches. The pattern is rated easy and includes a good-sized chart in black and white and a little basic cross stitch instruction if you need it.

The colors used in this one are classic for Halloween — black, orange, green, purple, gray and white — but you could change up the colors if you like or even use fewer of them if you wanted to make it a little simpler. The stripes between the motifs could also be worked in a single color, or use a variegated thread to make it even more fun.

You can download this free pattern from Yarnspirations. In addition to this one there are a handful of other free Halloween cross stitch patterns from Anchor on the Yarnspirations website. You can find all of them here, but they include a ghost, a bubbling cauldron, a laughing jack o’lantern and a black cat riding a broom. And if you need more black cat cross stitch patterns be sure to check out my roundup of those, which you can find here.

[Photo: Yarnspirations]

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35+ Sunflower Cross Stitch Patterns

If you love patterns for frogs and sardines, animals, food, flowers and more, Happy Cross Stitchers has got you covered. With more than 1,600 patterns as of this writing, you’re almost guaranteed to find something you like.

I don’t know if I’ve missed something that cross stitch patterns featuring sardines are showing up everywhere (this is the second designer I’ve seen with them in the past month or so) but Happy Cross Stitchers has 60 sardine cross stitch patterns. They also have 200 patterns with flowers, and even more than that in their biggest category, which is animals.

Many of the animal cross stitch patterns have a modern nursery feel to them, like this set of four modern boho animal patterns featuring what I’m interpreting as owls, a moose (or it coulr be a deer), a donkey and a cow. Each individual pattern is 100 by 100 stitches and they use six or seven colors. The designs will come out to 7.1 inches or 18.14 cm when stitched on 14 count fabric.

There’s also a large number of Christmas cross stitch patterns, with lots of trees, little houses, Santas and word art. There are lots of bunnies, eggs and chicks in the Easter section.

The modern designs include lots of colorful, graphic florals. There are also well over 100 butterflies, many of which at least look like they could be inspired by real butterflies (though none of them are labeled as to what kind of butterfly they are).

You’ll also find plenty of cute and often funny cat and dog cross stitch patterns, though there are a lot more cats than dogs represented. And then there’s the food section, with patterns for fruits, different kinds of toast, a jar of pickles, doughnuts and more.

And that’s not even all there is in this store! I guess all this is a long way of saying there’s a lot of fun patterns at www.etsy.com/shop/HappyCrossStitchers on Etsy and you should go browse because you’ll probably find something you like. And if you do, I’d like to hear about it!

[Photo: Happy Cross Stitchers]

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