Designer Spotlight: Banani Stitchery

If you’re looking for a realistic cross stitch pattern from your favorite dog or cat, you’ll want to check out Banani Stitchery. This shop is full of gorgeous designs for different breeds of cats and dogs, so you can stitch up a Norwegian forest cat or a red toy poodle or a great variety of other cats and dogs.

There are less accurate but still adorable kitten cross stitch patterns, as well as bunnies, mostly with a spring flair. There’s also a section called cute characters, which is full of other adorable animals like a owl on a stack of books, a teddy bear in the rain and a baby goat going to the airport with a coffee and a travel bag.

Many of their patterns are large, colorful and complex, but if that’s your thing there are a lot of beautiful projects here, too. I love this vintage baubles cross stitch pattern, full of classic holiday ornaments packed in a box. If you still use ornaments like this, or fondly remember ornaments that looked like this, it would be a wonderful addition to your Christmas decor.

The pattern is 160 by 197 stitches and uses a whopping 73 colors and one blend. The design comes out to 11.43 by 14.07 inches, or 29 by 35.7 cm. It uses full and half cross stitches as well as backstitch.

Another big category is flowers, where you will find lots of colorful, realistic looking florals. There are a few landscapes, vintage inspired designs like the one shown here, and collections of patterns you might want to stitch together, such as flowers in vases or little dogs.

If this sounds like your kind of cross stitch, check out all their designs at Banani Stitchery.

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[Photo: Banani Stichery]

If you want to feel personally attacked by a collection of knitting and crochet patterns as I was, check out the “90s Mod Inspired” pattern lookbook from Yarnspirations.

It’s actually a great collection of patterns for folks who want to stitch up that Y2K look again (or for the first time). There’s an oversized, striped grandpa cardigan! A (crocheted) plaid messenger bag! A boxy argyle vest, and a rolled hem sweater the likes of which I bought in a store in the ’90s and knit a replica of later.

There’s also a section of “Prep School” patterns (think “Clueless,” they’re even called things like “As if” and “Betty”) including a granny square tie and crocheted wrap skirt, and a knit cabled pullover, beret and cardigan with blocky stripes. Other sections include casual collegiate, punk and mod, and academia.

Some of the patterns repeat among the sections but there’s a nice selection for people who want a little throwback for their back to school and fall wardrobes.

Since I had this sweater, we’ll take a closer look at the Caron Cropped Stripy Sweater. The one I knit from a pattern of my own devising in the mid ’00s was tonal blues, but this one calls for two colorways of Colorama Haze, a fuzzy self-striping worsted weight yarn.

The pattern comes in six sizes, with chest measurements ranging from 39 to 60 inches (that’s 99 to 152.5 cm). Clearly that’s a lot of ease at the lower sizes, since the smallest size is meant to fit an actual chest measurement from 28-34 inches, or 71-86.5 cm.

The sweater is a modified drop shoulder worked flat in pieces and seamed. That means the stripes probably won’t match around the body but it’s still a classic look. This one does have ribbing at the neckline, where the original sweater I owned and my re-creation had rolled hems throughout, but you can do it either way depending on your preference.

Do any of these projects remind you of clothes you might have worn or knit in the past? I’d love to hear about it!

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