PixlPeople: Cross-Stitch Your Favorite People

Customized cross-stitched portraits have been a trend for several years, yet there are surprisingly few book-length guides to designing and creating them. Cross-stitch designer Stoof here explains how to make a cross-stitch portrait and includes patterns for cross-stitching five body types—two “masculine,” two “feminine,” and one childlike—in standing and sitting poses, as well as hairstyles and clothing for each. The two “masculine” body types in the patterns include a slender body and a larger body, and the two “feminine” types include a slender body and an hourglass-shaped body. Assigning gender to the different components of cross-stitched portraits is an odd choice—there’s a lot of overlap in the clothing and hairstyles in the patterns, and it would be more inclusive to simply present the options and let stitchers make their choices. Another unusual choice in this book’s patterns is that the heads and bodies face either left or right, even though front-facing tends to be the typical style for cross-stitched portraits. Stitching charts for pets, hobbies, careers, and star signs allow stitchers to add elements to their portraits, and a gallery of back-stitch ideas provides suggestions for enhancing portraits with jewelry, tattoos, eyewear, and facial details.