Satsuma Street 4 Seasons Stitch-Along

The wonderful four seasons patterns by Satsuma Street are the motifs of our first Stitch-Along and here’s why you should join!

The Designs

Jody Rice of Satsuma Street has become a hugely popular designer of modern cross-stitch patterns and we’ve carried some of her work since the beginning. Now it’s time to expand our selection and what better way than to choose her four seasons, which you can stitch individually or put together in a small collage once finished?

The seasonal designs follow the same principle of a 3 x 3 grid with a border around each of their respective nine motifs:

If you’ve never used variegated threads by DMC before, this is the perfect opportunity to try some, as Jody’s background in graphic design ensures they’re put to work in the best possible ways. Said border is one location for these variegated colours with either gliding monochrome nuances or several colours closely placed on the colour wheel.

The Materials

If your thread stash is depleted, or never existed to begin with, the four seasons will expand it nicely. In total there are 23 + 25 + 27 + 25 skeins being sent your way and fortunately there’s colour overlap between seasons fewer than a handful of times. Few doubles in other words, but ample stash building.

Jody favours certain colours across all of her designs, so if you acquire other patterns later, chances are great you will be able to use threads you got through our Stitch-Along.

As for the fabric, her choice is white 28-count Cashel linen by Zweigart and that’s what you’ll get in each full kit, too. We have opted to go with precut fabric, so there will be a bit more of it available compared to what the pattern calls for. This gives you more options when displaying your finished creation.

The Product Choice

Choose between the following alternatives:

1. Full kit: pattern, fabric, threads, needle
2. Pattern + fabric
3. Pattern

If you’re located somewhere far away and think shipping would be too costly, you’re warmly welcome to join the Stitch-Along with your own materials as well!

The Schedule

We start stitching in December 2021 and finish in November 2022. You can stitch only one season or all four, the choice is yours, and preorder for later seasons opens a couple of months before the season in question is about to start.

Here’s the planned schedule:

• Invierno, winter pattern: December 2021 – February 2022.
  • Preorder is open now and the product ships in November.
  • Product in the webshop.
• Primavera, spring pattern: March – May 2022.
  • Preorder opens in December and the product ships in February.
  • Product in the webshop.
• Verano, summer pattern: June – August 2022.
  • Preorder opens in March and the product ships in May.
  • Product in the webshop.
• Otoño, autumn pattern: September – November 2022.
  • Preorder opens in June and the product ships in August.
  • Product in the webshop.
• Four seasons product in the webshop.

There are early-bird discounts for individual seasons as well as the four-season product and some end today 20 October 2021, so hurry up if you don’t want to miss them!

”Why such slow progress?”, you might ask. It’s not that slow for beginners, people with busy schedules and others like myself, who have multiple projects going simultaneously. Besides, you’re very welcome to start with us, but finish on your own time, whether sooner or later!

Three months per season may sound like a long time, but here’s how I’ve planned to break down the cross-stitch elements over the weeks:

• Week 1: borders
• Week 2: upper left motif
• Week 3: upper middle motif
• Week 4: upper right motif
• Week 5: middle left motif
• Week 6: middle middle motif
• Week 7: middle right motif
• Week 8: lower left motif
• Week 9: lower middle motif
• Week 10: lower right motif
• Week 11-13: catching up if necessary, washing and drying, ironing, framing

Wrapping Up

If there’s enough interest, a monthly 30-minute Zoom meeting can be arranged. I’d love to give tips how to handle variegated threads and the finishing steps among others, if you’re new(ish) to cross stitch, or answer questions you may have. Let me know in the comments or send us a message via the Contact page!

So what do you think? Is this Satsuma Street Stitch-Along for you?