Cross Stitch Patterns with Homespun Elegance

I’ve been choosing cross stitch pattern designers kind of at random to feature here from a list I found online, but it seems like a lot of the ones I’ve been choosing feature a lot of designs with a historic bent.

Homespun Elegance on Etsy has a collection of samplers, historic-inspired designs and projects with an old-fashioned look. Many of the patterns have the option of downloading PDFs of the charts or getting a paper pattern shipped to you, so if you’re shopping make sure you choose the format you prefer (they are separate listings).

One of my favorites is The Stitcher, which is pictured here. It’s a cross stitch sampler with a woman stitching as part of the design. This one is worked on amber cross stitch fabric to give it that aged look, and its shown in a 6 by 9 inch frame with some added embellishments like buttons and a little pair of scissors. You can embellish your project with whatever buttons you have in your stash, or you can leave it plain.

The site includes projects that are framed, pillows and other small designs. There are reproduction samplers, Christmas and Halloween patterns, patriotic and summer designs, Valentine’s Day and love projects and more.

In addition to the cross stitch patterns, the designer also sells punch needle and sewing patterns, frames and other notions such as buttons, charms, trim and other findings you can use to embellish your projects. Items are shipped from Virginia. These little bits and bobs are sure to inspire you to think about how you can add some embellishments to your projects to make them a little more interesting and give another layer of detail to your projects.

So if you’re looking for some old time, homespun inspiration for your projects, or some classic sampler projects to make, be sure to check out Homespun Elegance.

[Photo: Homespun Elegance]

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I have never stitched a greeting card, but I kind of like the idea of it. It’s a card and a gift all in one, and hopefully one the recipient will hang onto for years to come.

This collection of easy and colorful greeting card cross stitch patterns from Susan Bates (via Gathered) are a great place to start if you want to stitch your own greeting cards.

These text-based designs cover a lot of card-sending events, such as:

get well soon
happy birthday
thank you
thinking of you
congratulations
anniversary
new home
good luck

The lettering is done in gradients and there are other details like hearts and stars, a house key and a gift, depending on the text. There are full cross stitches and back stitch on all of the cards, and they use 15 colors for the cross stitching and six for the back stitching (and just two colors are used for both, so it’s 19 colors total).

The designs vary a bit in size but the biggest one is 52 by 67 stitches, which comes out to 3.75 by 4.75 inches or 9.5 by 12 cm when worked on 14 count fabric or 28 count evenweave. The text suggests beads are also used in the patterns but there’s no note of them in the key, so go wild and add some beads if you like.

Designs are worked on a price of 6 by 8 inch/15 by 20 cm fabric and then mounted to a card with a colorful baking piece of card stock behind it. This is easy to assemble with whatever cardstock greeting cards you have on hand.

You can get the free charts as a PDF from Gathered.

Have you ever stitched your own greeting cards? I’d love to hear about it, or let me know if these inspire you to try.

[Photo: Susan Bates via Gathered]

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