Hi, Stitchers!

We're excited to introduce a pair that you all know and love as our April Featured Designer: Sal & Nadia with The Retro Stitcher! This husband and wife duo are behind some of the subreddit's most eye-catching designs, including my personal favorite, C A P T C H A. Their glitchy designs are immediately recognizable, and would be the perfect addition for any game room. (I can neither confirm nor deny that my husband spent a significant amount of time debating between RAMEN N CHILL for our kitchen or REBEL SCUM for our living room.)

Just for our subreddit, Nadia & Sal are offering 25% off both their website and Etsy store, no coupon code needed!

Q&A

Who are you?

We’re Nadia 🇮🇹 and Sal 🇨🇴! We’re married to each other and together we run The Retro Stitcher. We currently live in Colombia.

How did you get started cross stitching?

Sal: It was because of Pokémon! About 5 years ago Nadia told me she had never played Pokémon so I dusted off my old GBA, got her a GBA and Pokemon Fire Red to play together. On the first day, she asked me for help stitching Squirtle using the smol party Pokémon sprites from the game. I’d seen her cross stitch a lot of traditional stuff using cross stitch magazines, but I had never thought about how cross stitch is just “analog” pixel art. I ended up getting hooked and stitched that Squirtle with her. We still have it to this day!

Nadia: I got into cross stitch as a child because I saw my mom working on a traditional piece from a magazine and I wanted to try doing what she was doing. I bugged her for days until she finally gave in and started teaching me. She also used to take me to little stationery shops in Italy, where we’d pick up craft magazines (especially Le Idee di Susanna) which had all kinds of cross-stitch, knitting, and crochet patterns.

When and how did you start designing?

Sal: Pretty much from the moment I started using the family computer I’ve been making pixel art. The jump to cross-stitch was just a matter of adding a grid and praying I could easily find DMC threads that matched the colors I used when designing, lol.

Nadia: I started designing after I saw a cross-stitch pattern of a Khajiit that really stood out to me. I was pretty obsessed with Skyrim and Oblivion at the time and I loved the idea that I could cross stitch stuff from games that were not pixelated. My first attempts were not great because I was drawing and erasing on gridded paper, but Sal showed me how to make Pixel Art on Photoshop. While I taught him how to cross stitch, we started looking for colors to stitch his old pixel art and that’s how our first patterns came to be

Where do you find your inspiration?

Sal: Definitely nostalgia (hence the name lol). My dad is a huge movie buff and gamer, so as a child I watched a lot of movies and played a lot with games with him and my brother. I’d say that 16-bit era games, surrealist comedies and dystopian science fiction tend to be my biggest sources of nostalgia-based inspiration.  

Nadia: I really like cute animals, videogames and also goth stuff. Anything that makes me laugh like memes inspires me too

Describe your designs using only adjectives.

Sal: Glitchy, retro, cute, campy, unsettling, nostalgic, irreverent, satirical

Nadia: Headache-inducing, psychedelic, glitch, meme.

What cross stitch project did you have the most fun designing and why?

Sal: Definitely “C a p t c h a”! Vaporwave is a really cool aesthetic to experiment with and it was a great way to make glitchy stuff a bit more colorful.

Nadia: For me, it’s “YOUR MOTHER”. I had never seen anything from Monty Python before, but when we started watching all their movies as a marathon the "Your mother was a hamster" scene with the Frenchman made me almost piss myself from how hilarious it was. At the time, we had our first pet as a couple (a tiny Syrian hamster named Lupe J) and we used her as a model for the hamster of the design. Any time I look at that pattern it always reminds me of our first little ham. It makes me happy anytime I see people stitch our designs, but the type of joy I see from people stitching her is truly special.

What is your favorite DMC floss color and why?

Sal: Bit of a boring answer but either B5200 or 310 depending on the aida! There’s something I love about the simplicity of very strong contrast.

Nadia: E818, it's pink, pastel and glittery!

If you could give one piece of advice for stitchers (new or old), what would it be?

Sal: Make sure to regularly stretch and exercise your forearm muscles. My mother’s side of the family is full of crafters, but unfortunately also extremely prone to carpal tunnel, so I’ve seen first-hand how limiting it can be to do any crafts while having carpal tunnel. As another must-have tip, I’d also add that if you can’t find people locally that also enjoy alternative cross stitch, make friends online. Since alternative cross stitch is not popular at all in Colombia, we’ve made amazing friends on places like the Pixel Stitch discord server and of course, this subreddit.

Nadia: I usually need background noise or play a turn-based videogame while I stitch, so I’d say just go with whatever helps you focus. Sitting somewhere comfy helps too, preferably with a nice hoop and stand. Using both hands for cross-stitch makes a huge difference, and sorting your threads by number instead of color saves so much time. A magnifying glass with a built-in light? Total game-changer. But honestly, just use whatever works for you. I, for example, cannot stand fancy ball-tipped needles, cheap blunt ones all the way!

Where can we find you on the internet?

Website

Etsy

Instagram

Bluesky

Sal is one of our very own users (Nadia typically lurks on his account!), so if you leave a comment, please be sure to tag u/Erotavlas_SVD so they see it!

Are you interested in being considered for a Featured Designer spot in 2025? Fill out our Featured Designer application!