Susan Bates - Designing the “Pretty Floral” Patterns for StitchableCards

Above: My mood-board, showing a couple of my original cross stitch patterns, which were the inspiration for my new designs.

Other images: top left and background image on right: Nature Uninterrupted Photogtaphy. Bottom right image: Annie Spratt. Lefthand side background image: Essentially Nomadic.

A while ago I designed a set of cross stitch greetings cards and a couple of gift tags that featured little flowers in a variety of compositions. These patterns proved to be very popular and were some of my favourite designs - so much so that I wanted to create a new set of designs with this feel and look again.

I’m often asked where I get my inspiration from – and many times it’s from the world around me – but this time it was from my own work! Sometimes I want to go back and re-visit an idea or a theme that I’ve really enjoyed working on - so I was able to do this with my new set of pretty floral ‘Stitchables’ patterns.

These types of small floral patterns are often called ‘ditsy’ florals in the design world, and they are very popular for patterns on fabric. They are also very popular in illustration;you often see them on greetings cards and gift wrap. Floral designs have a wide appeal and can have a timeless quality to them.

The new designs feature pretty garlands and floral border designs which draw inspiration from my previous patterns. You can see my original cross stitch patterns in the above mood-board photograph above. The flowers I’ve focused on, as before, are anemones, pink rose and blue forget-me-nots, as well as other little flowers. Various greetings in backstitch lettering add an extra aspect to these designs, allowing you to personalize them.

For the colour palette I’ve chosen pretty pinks and corals as the main colours, with an accent of turquoise blues, to add more depth. Dramatic black inthe centres of the anemone flowers stops the designs from being too pale and pastel-coloured. Luscious greensare used for the leaves and for some of the designs you can see a zingy yellow in the centre of the very small flowers.

For this design pink roses and coral colored anemones create a colorful floral border, which frames the ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ greeting.The composition is made up of 3 large blooms with small flowers trailing between the gaps. You could change the sentiment on this card, if you want to, as long as it fits in the space!

Hello Friend:

This design has a similar composition to the rectangular shaped design, with the flowers creating a decorative border – but a simpler colour palette is used here, which focuses on the pink and red shades.The flowers disappear off the edge of the design, creating a pretty border.

Thank You:

Dainty flowers are scattered over this heart shaped template. Simple backstitch lettering creates a focal point for the design. This one will be quick and easy to stitch, as ithas a very dainty design, which leaves a lot of the background unstitched.

Happy Birthday:

Here we see a cute floral garland. The circular shape of the design contrasts nicely with the square shape of this ‘Stitchables’ template. Again, this would be a very quick design to stitch, especially if you leave the background unstitched, as we have here in our example.

As mentioned above, we’ve not stitched the backgrounds of these designs, so that you can see the white perforated paper behind the stitching. This makes the designs quick and easy to stitch and gives the ‘Stitchables’ a different look.

However, if you prefer to stitch the backgrounds the stitching kits provide enough thread for you to do this, if you follow our suggestions. For the rectangular and square shaped-designs you can use SC43 (ecru) and for the circular and heart shaped designs you can use SC33 (pale turquoise blue). These colors won’t dominate the designs and will keep the dainty, light feel of them.

Make sure you sew the backgrounds before you add the backstitch lettering or the backstitch of the flower designs, as it needs to be the final thing that you stitch!

I hope you love these designs and have fun stitching them!