Traditional Cross Stitch with a Touch of Snark

At first glance at My Big Toe Designs’ website, you might think you’ve stumbled upon a pretty classic cross stitch designer who makes samplers using bible verses and traditional designs.

And there is that, but if you look a little closer, you’ll see another side, with designs that call cat hair a “specialty fiber,” refer to the voices in their head saying to eat the chocolate, and that as far as everyone else knows, this is a “normal” family.

These designs are billed as whimsical on the My Big Toe Designs website, and they are that, especially compared to the other designs on the site. Who couldn’t relate to “If it’s not one thing, it’s three others” or “I barely survived yesterday and it’s already today”?

As mentioned above, in addition to the snarkier side, this designer makes a lot of samplers and inspirational designs with bible quotes and heartfelt phrases. There are also holiday designs, mostly for Christmas with a religious bent. The pinkie series offers sets of small Christmas designs that can be framed in tiny frames, used as ornaments or given as gifts.

In addition to all the patterns on offer, the website includes tutorials that show how to use stitched fabric in different ways, including making a biscornu, covering a wooden block, making a needle book, a flat ornament and an ort box (if that last one doesn’t mean anything to you, check out this post all about orts).

There also are a few free patterns on the website, including designs about winter, stitching friends, being a grandparent and more.

While you can browse all of My Big Toe Designs’ patterns on the website, you can’t actually order directly from them. But there is a list of websites on the site that you can use if you don’t have a local needlework shop that happens to carry the designs you want.

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40+ Christian Cross Stitch Patterns

I love mini cross stitch patterns any time of the year, but they’re especially nice as we head toward the holidays and you might want to make some last-minute gifts. Mini Christmas cross stitch patterns are super cute as ornaments, or you can make them into bookmarks, little pins, add them to napkins, or whatever else you might like to add a bit of cross stitch to.

They’re also great because they’re usually sold as a set so you’re getting a bunch of patterns you can use together or separately all in one.

For example, Cross Stitch by Coconut has a collection of 100 mini holiday cross stitch patterns, which would be so cute stitched as a whole bunch in a sampler style, or as the border of another project, etc. Most of the individual designs are around 20 by 20 stitches and will take less than an hour to stitch up.

If 100 patterns sounds a little overwhelming, try Stitchonomy‘s mini collection, which has 30 tiny designs. I love the variety in this little collection, which has everything from Santa to a mug of hot chocolate, a Christmas pudding and a snow globe. The largest ones in this set are 31 by 31 stitches.

Purple Kitty Yarns has a collection from an old Coats & Clark leaflet designed by Barbara Swanson (and used by permission) that includes a couple of cute borders, ornaments, a wreath and other cute stuff.

These minis from Cross Stitch Inn Shop are meant to be ornaments, but you could use them for other little projects as well. It includes 16 patterns, all of which are smaller than 2 inches. The most complex ones use seven colors, but most only use two or three.

And these cute little projects from X Cross Stitch Pattern X on Etsy are all meant to fit in three-inch hoops. The largest size is around 35 by 35 stitches, and several of these are more winter than Christmas so you can use them as decor even after the season is over.

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