I’ve always been an arts and crafts girl for as long as I remember. I’ve tried it all… knitting, embroidery, painting furniture, photography, home improvement DIY,etc.
Yeah, I’m quite crafty.
So, when I saw that there was a really cool embroidery book called Stitch People, I was interested. I love the adorable embroidered family portraits that I’ve seen popping up here and there and thought it would be really fun to make my own.
Stitch People is the creation of Lizzy Dabczynski-Bean and shows you step-by-step directions to creating your own customized cross-stitch designs. You can find her website here. Lizzy was super sweet and sent me her Do-It-Yourself Stitch People book and I was in crafty heaven.
There are so many cool ideas that I really didn’t even know where to start. I wanted to immediately do a family portrait for myself, my parents, my siblings, my girlfriends and um… pretty much everyone I ever met. Between hairstyles, outfits and accessories there are literally thousands of combinations of cross-stitch people!
I decided to start small though… with a portrait of Ollie.
Here are my supplies:
- Fiddler’s Aida fabric in lite oatmeal, size 14 – $4.99
- 3” crafting hoop- $1.99
- Embroidery needles- $1.49
- 4 colors of embroidery thread – $1.60
I bought everything at Joann’s for less than $10 and have plenty of leftovers for my next project.
I decided to do a hybrid design of the Yorkshire Terrier samples, since Ollie is a Yorkie crossed with a Chihuahua (aka a Chorkie). Here’s what Ollie looks like:
Here are his embroidered doppelgangers:
And here is my version of Ollie, the embroidered dog:
I added him to a little art wall I have going on in my office and like him watching over me.
I totally love how he turned out and I can’t wait to try making people next. I’m thinking I will do Travis in his work uniform, me in a top and big ol’ skirt (perhaps I can cross-stitch on some tattoos…) and Jack in his little school uniform. Okay, now I need to run back to Joann’s so I can start on my next one!
Had you heard of Stitch People? What would be your first project?
Disclosure: I received Stitch People for free for review purposes.
This is adorable and I love Ollie. So cute!! My mom used to cross stitch. She has one of Anne Arundel County including landmarks, animals, and names of cities and towns. She also had a cute one in our bathroom growing up with a joke about wiping the seat. This post brought back happy memories 🙂
Um. That’s awesome! I, too, would want to cross stitch everyone (but starting with pets).
I love arts and crafts, always have! this looks like such a fun project to try! thanks for sharing!
I’ve never heard of Stitch People but I love the concept! I think my first project would be of my dog too!
Oh how adorable! I tried my hand at this when I was younger – this would be fun to do with my nieces.
Oh my gosh, how cute is that?! I love the look of cross stitched stuff, just don’t know if I have the patience to actually complete one 🙂
I downloaded a cross stitch pattern from Etsy a while back and it’s larger than anticipated so I’ve delayed starting it but I want to so badly!!