Discover Cross Stitch Delight
With Patterns Patch

A WARM WELCOME TO
ALL OF OUR READERS

Here at Patterns Patch you will find everything you need to either get started with cross stitch or improve your stitching skills. We keep you informed on the latest tools, supplies, and accessories, as well as news, reviews, and tutorials. Our mission is to inform, engage, and entertain you while teaching and improving your cross stitch savvy and skills. But most of all, we want you to have fun galore!

To help you find your way around Patterns Patch, we’ve divided our website into these three top sections:

Home

In this, our Home category, we share with you what’s going on in the needlework world, especially cross stitch. We also periodically return to a series of topical themes…

Blog

Much of our content begins with Scarlet. From her lively and inquiring mind many interesting and thought-proving cross stitch thoughts and ideas emerge.

Store

Here we have our own growing list of cross stitch books and reports; each written by one of our in-house cross stitching experts to make your stitching error-free and enjoyable.

Here on our Home page, we feature these three categories,
to get you off to a good start:

News

We live in the “15 minutes of fame” age (although now it often seems more like five minutes). We regularly scan the various media sources and bring you articles when we see something that you might find interesting.

Ideas

Ah! Ideas! … What happens when minds never go to sleep? We get a germ of an idea, and then our mind goes to work. We’re constantly looking and finding the results of this and bring you researched articles to trigger-off your own ideas.

Cross Stitch Patterns

All cross stitchers know that ‘patterns’ are the life blood of our noble craft. We don’t know of any cross stitcher that doesn’t relish the challenge of finding that next exciting pattern they’re absolutely dying to get started on. In our articles about patterns, we include ideas and challenges to get you thinking.

Here, you can view a small sample of our own most popular patterns:

We now have a bunch of cross stitch patterns suitable for beginners and less experienced stitchers.

If you’re interested in seeing the rest of our 100 most popular cross stitch patterns, and perhaps downloading some for free, then click on Cross Stitch Patterns Gallery (opens in a new window).

Our Latest Blog Posts

Here are our latest blog articles (posts), with the most recent on the left.

john wigham image

“Cross Stitch is ALIVE and THRIVING in The 2020’s”

The original title of this article was, “Oh NO! Cross Stitch is DYING!”

Well here we are in early 2023 and our beloved cross stitch craft is positively blooming. However, that wasn’t always the case – read on!

In the past, how often have you read or heard that cross stitch was dying or in decline, or some such similar sentiment? Unfortunately, this doom and gloom story persisted; it would never go far away. And worse, people, seeing – or hearing – it often, started to think, “Perhaps it’s true!”.

Four years have past since I wrote this article so it’s time to update it, especially now were two years into a global pandemic. Having suffered once-in-a-lifetime world-wide lockdowns, it’s time to take a look at the impact and consequences of Covid19 on cross stitch.

Back in 2018, I made the statement, “Let me tell you, Cross Stitch is NOT dying, far from it … but, thanks to the influence of the world wide web, it is evolving – changing for the better! I’m about to tell you how and why that is still the case in 2023, and beyond … but before doing so, let me digress for a moment and introduce myself…

Hi, I’m John Wigham, the founder and chief editor of this website. I’ve been a professional writer and editor for more than 25 years and together with my colleagues, Janis Applegate and Scarlet Smith, we create all our own Cross Stitch content. Janis and Scarlet are both highly skilled and experienced cross stitchers and from their vast pool of knowledge comes most of the content you will find on Patterns Patch.

Ah! Yes … back to my headline: “Cross Stitch is ALIVE and WELL in The 2020’s”.

The Popularity of Cross Stitch in 2004

Way back in 2004 when I was first introduced to Cross Stitch, by the internet pioneer John Reese, I used Google to find out just how popular Cross Stitch was at that time. The global monthly search figure online for the term Cross Stitch was about 135,000, which works out at approximately 4,500 searches daily. “Well! There’s certainly lots of interest.”, thinks I.

Doing the same check in 2018, showed the monthly volume had grown to 165,000, see Figure 1 below. This had increased by an additional 1,000 searches daily.

cross stitch popularity — **1. Searches and Webpages**

Another interesting fact from Figure 1 is shown by the arrow (About 79,100,000 results). What that means is there are approximately 79.1 MILLION web pages dedicated to Cross Stitch. I’m sure you’ll agree that is a lot of pages!

Now moving on to Figure 2, you’ll see that the top three cross stitch keywords listed (cross stitch patterns, cross stitch kits, and cross stitch patterns free have a combined monthly volume of 115,000 searches.

This total of 115,000 searches is in addition to the 165,000 shown in Figure 1. So we have some 280,000 searches for four cross stitch terms, and there are thousands of other cross stitch terms. Just think for a moment, and wonder, how many millions of searches are carried out each month?

You can check all of this yourself in Google, Bing, or whichever search engine you prefer to use.

So, What’s different, Post Pandemic

OK, strictly speaking we’re not officially ‘post pandemic’, but we are somewhere between the ‘normal and the ‘new normal’, the media talks about. Many trends identified during the Covid-19 pandemic are here to stay and some aspects of life will never go back to the previous normal.

In early 2020 people were forced to work from home and many found they preferred this new way of working. For some, masks are here to stay. Teleworking opened up a sea of geographical possibilities world-wide.

As an example of this, my own son, who lives in South-East Asia, has recently landed a permanent job working online for a company in The Netherlands (Europe). These are just a couple of examples of the emerging ‘new normal’.

During lockdown people, as we know, were largely restricted to their homes, and needed to keep themselves occupied. Hobbies were sought everywhere. Here is where our beloved cross stitch came to the fore with its low cost startup, which can be carried out anywhere.

Getting hold of the basic supplies: thread, fabric, a needle, a pattern, and a hoop (optional) were never difficult and so cross stitches popularity soared to more than one million hits per month according to Google.

As restrictions have eased globally, the number of searches online has steadily dropped, but appears to have levelled out at about a quarter of a million monthly searches for ‘Cross Stitch’.

cross stitch popularity 2022 — **3. Searches and Webpages 2022**

Figure 3 opposite, shows a monthly volume of 246,000 searches on Cross Stitch. Which is up by a considerable 49% over the last 4 years when comparing with Figure 1 above.

Similarly, the number of cross stitch web pages has grown by, again a considerable 45% over the same period when compared with Figure 1 above.

I’m sure most will agree that the above all points to Cross Stitch continuing to evolve successfully.

But what about Cross Stitch Forums? Aren’t they less popular today?

Cross Stitch Forums are in Decline.

It’s sadly true that Cross Stitch Forum audiences do seem to be in decline. Although when you give it some thought, this can perhaps best be explained by the growth and development of knowledge centers online.

The likes of Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia, to name just three, have all become world class authorities on a vast range of subjects, including the popular crafts. You can also add to these several rapidly growing social media channels, such as TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest as well.

Savvy internet users are today showing a greater tendency to carry out their own research rather than post a query on a forum and then wait for a reply. In today’s increasingly busy world, they have little time to waste, so seek near-instant answers.

A major gripe by those still using the forums is the disappearance of cross stitch supplies from many main line stores. Where in the past, whole aisles have been dedicated to cross-stitch. The amount of stock many of them carry has shrunk significantly to such an extent many no longer carry any cross stitch supplies at all. As a result, some stitchers are citing this as evidence Cross Stitch is dying.

The reality is that the rapid growth of crossstitch blogs offering a huge range of both free and paid patterns has lead to the decline of the high street cross stitch stores. Is this an indication that cross-stitch is dying? Yes, it possibly seems so for those left behind by the world-wide-web.

However, those of us online know better. You see, while the number of online searches may be down in some parts of the world, there has never been more options and choices for the active cross stitcher.

So! do you still believe Cross Stitch is dying, or in decline?

So! IS Cross Stitch in Decline or Thriving?

Well, there’s little doubt that in some parts of the world it has become less popular in recent times. Now, cross stitch has been with us for thousands of years and over that time the interest in crafts and hobbies has been cyclical: popular today, less so tomorrow and then even more popular the day after; and so it goes on.

But then you also need to consider there has never been such an abundance of cross stitch supplies (patterns, kits, floss, fabric, accessories, and so on) as there are today in 2022. Their availability just keeps on growing as new suppliers continue to pop up everywhere.

Cross Stitch Supplies

4. Cross Stitch Supplies 2022

Yet another indication of the growing resurgence of cross stitch is manufacturers are continuing to produce supplies for cross stitch in ever growing numbers. You could argue that most supplies could be used for other crafts such as Needlework and Embroidery. This of course is true, but not for patterns and kits, of which there are more available than ever.

One more indication of cross stitch’s popularity is by virtue of the volume of businesses springing up on the Internet. If you check online, there are hundreds of websites where you can browse and order patterns of your choice. We really are spoiled for choice.

I hope to have answered some of your concerns about the popularity of crossstitch. We at Patterns Patch firmly believe our beloved craft will continue to grow and give its practitioners ever more exciting stitching choices in the future – and way beyond 2022…