Stitch Up Tiny Landmarks in Stamp Form

I don’t know if stamps are trending as a craft motif or maybe I’m just ahead of the game, but Pinterest has been serving me a lot of content in all sorts of craft genres having to do with stamps lately. We’re talking little stamp shaped paintings and sewing projects and, as you might image based on where you are reading this, stamp cross stitch patterns.

Maybe it’s because we’re feeling a collective loss of attention span lately and we need little, cute, satisfying crafts to get us through these long, hard days.

Or maybe the algorithm knows I’m a sucker for cute little satisfying projects.

Whatever.

One such example is this lovely little collection of 20 world landmarks stitched in stamp form. The design is from Teeny Weeny X Stitch and I’m not sure I can identify all of them off the top of my head (and the pattern listing doesn’t say), a few of them are the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Taj Mahal, the pyramids in Egypt (and a Mayan pyramid, too!), Christ the Redeemer, the Statue of Liberty, the Sydney Opera House, the Colosseum, Stonehenge, the Washington Monument and the Great Wall of China.

If you can identify more of them, let me know!

Each pattern is 40 by 40 stitches and they use between 9 and 23 colors depending on the location. They come out less than 3 inches/7.6 cm when stitched on 14 count fabric.

I kind of love the whole set done as one big piece, but you could also stitch your favorites as individual projects. How cute would a little Eiffel Tower be in your scrapbook about your trip to France (if you are such a person to travel to France and keep scrapbooks)? A little Leaning Tower of Pisa made into a patch to cover a stain on a shirt? The possibilities are endless!

You can grab the pattern from Teeny Weeny X Stitch on Etsy.

[Photo: Teeny Weeny X Stitch]

Review: Cute Kawaii Cross Stitch

I came across a post recently from Lord Libidan wondering about where all the good cross stitch alphabets have gone. While you can find lots of fonts on Etsy (and I even shared a few good cross stitch fonts recently) it can be difficult to know exactly what you’re getting when you buy a pattern for an alphabet online. You might find just what you want but it’s the wrong size, or maybe everything is plain and you want something fancier.

One option is to hit up your local library for cross stitch books. If you’re looking for large, fancy lettering to use as a stand alone for projects, I found Felicity Hall’s Stitch Alphabets & Numbers on the shelves at my local library.

This book includes lots of guidance in terms of materials, how to stitch and ways to use lettered projects, from simple framing to making alphabet blocks, pillows and a stretched canvas.

There are three sets of letters and three sets of numbers in this book. The circus letters are colorful and include circles and other details inside the letters that make some of them look like faces. They come in a variety of widths but are all 80 stitches high (making them 5.7 inches, or 14.5 cm tall on 14 count fabric.

Woodblock letters vary from a straightforward, blocky H to a G that looks like a fish tail, and they’re designed to have details in the background. There are all 80 by 80 stitches. Shadow letters are blocky with a drop shadow in a color; they vary in width but are 55 stitches tall. All the letter fonts also include an ampersand.

The number fonts include screen print numbers, which are worked in two colors that look sort of like printing; vintage numbers, which have flowers inside the numbers that also have a striped shadow; and floral numbers, where the number is a solid color surrounded by flowers and vines. These are all 79 by 80 stitches, while the vintage ones are 55 by 55 and the screen print ones vary in both width and height.

These aren’t the sorts of letters you’d add to another project, but if you want to stitch a single letter, a monogram, a short word or the table numbers for a wedding, this book offers some fun options and nice project ideas for how to use them.

About the book: 128 pages, paperback. Published 2014 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $24.99.

Have you read?