Charm on Wheels: Whimsical Cross Stitch Bus Pattern

When tasked with creating a design for the smalls/ biscornu issue of Down The Rabbit Hole, I found myself pondering various ideas. Should I revisit a floral motif like last year, or venture into new territory? Inspiration struck once again while I was commuting on the bus or train, my sketchbook in hand. As I mulled over ideas, I couldn't help but notice the lacklustre appearance of modern trains – just dreary grey boxes on tracks. However, our buses exuded charm with their vibrant designs. Basically they were more colourful and I could do something with that!

 

Do you find yourself frequently travelling on public transport? Like me, perhaps you rely on it daily. Here, our bus and train system utilizes cards called go cards for fare payment. I couldn't bear to leave mine in its plain plastic sleeve, so I decided to give it a makeover. Transforming it into its own miniature bus seemed fitting – mirroring the cheerful decorations adorning buses in our city.

Each major city in Australia now boasts its own mini bus, capturing the unique colouring and character of its public transportation. Though I empathise with Hobart, where the buses are simply plain white!

Ensuring accuracy in colour representation was crucial, albeit challenging. I scoured online sources for reference photos, striving to faithfully recreate each city's distinct bus design. Of course they are not perfect but they are cute :D Can you tell I'm trying to be a bit over the top right now? I tried to be accurate but it wasn't always easy. 

Now where can you find these designs?

The set of designs is available from Down The Rabbit Hole's Patreon. 

You can sign up for a subscription or just buy the individual magazines. 

I hope you enjoy this little design. 

Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin

 

 

Down The Rabbit Hole - In Flander's Fields

I know I did talk about this when I first started designing for this magazine all the way back in 2020! Gosh that seems like a long time ago! You can see the first design I did for them here.

They are now onto issue 6 and each issue I have designed a new piece. It has been a great bonus. I finished the Aussie Animal Seasons series. They were so much fun to design. I love these little characters :D You can still get these patterns by buying magazines 1-4. I will eventually release these in my shop but I haven't gotten there yet. 

 

Once that series was done I had to come up with something else for the next summer issue... so I ended up making this cute little cricket owl :D Because cricket is such a great summer sport here. Also owls... do I need anything more?

The autumn issue is always hard. Living where I do in Australia I don't feel any connection the autumn because it seems to just disappear between summer and then suddenly it's mildly cold. But ANZAC day falls within Autumn and I found myself drawing a poppy. I had so much fun playing with pens and pencils. I love it when my drawings become designs it makes me really proud of how they turn out.

 I had this stunning red music fabric and I surrounded my piece with it and it just makes it sing.

 So this piece 'In Flander's Fields' can be found in the latest issue of Down The Rabbit Hole that has been released on the 15th of Feb.

I hope you enjoy all these pretty designs.
Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin

MY DESIGN IN A MAGAZINE!!!

Now if you follow me on Instagram or facebook you would have already heard this exciting news but for those that haven't here goes!!!

There is a new digital magazine out from Australia featuring Australian and New Zealand designers. It's called Down The Rabbit Hole and is now available to buy on their website. 

But why does this have me so excited? ?  Well one of the designs in the magazine is one of mine! They put a call out a few months ago and I answered and they accepted one of my designs!!!! Cue dancing around the room!!!! It's been a long fight to get more of my designs out there and recognised and this is absolutely great :D 

My design Summer Koala is one of the designs that you can get a hold of when you buy this magazine.

This little cutie is all ready to go swimming in the heat of summer. It's a quick little stitch and won't take you long to do.

Actually the whole magazine has so many cute designs and I am going to have to stitch a few of them. 

 Anyway I hope you enjoy this magazine and you find some cute little patterns. 

Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin

P.s. I wrote this two weeks ago but forgot that I hadn't posted it at all! Silly me so I will have a few posts coming out all at once as I am disorganised right now. I blame Christmas crazy already starting. I am looking forward to the christmas holidays!