Caterpillar Cross Stitch Advent Calendar Review: A Crafty Countdown Worth the Price?

Introduction

Advent calendars for crafters have exploded in popularity, but few target a hobby as patient as cross stitch. The Caterpillar Cross Stitch advent calendar promises 24 days of patterns, threads, and accessories inside a reusable keepsake box, aimed at beginners who want everything they need in one place. With a $147 price tag, it asks a lot, so we opened every single door to see whether the contents justify the cost.

About Caterpillar Cross Stitch

Caterpillar Cross Stitch is a small business based in the UK, which shows in the pound sterling pricing on its website. The brand is best known for unusual, playful cross stitch patterns: Halloween themes, Christmas designs, and encouraging quotes stitched in a style that feels genuinely distinct from the traditional samplers most people picture. Beyond patterns, the shop sells crochet supplies, a subscription box, and kits in multiple formats: a premium kit with hoop, fabric, and pattern; a standard kit; or a standalone PDF pattern as an instant digital download. Individual full kits, like the Happy Haunting design, run around £31 with a hoop or £27 without, which makes the calendar’s pattern selection look reasonably priced by comparison.

What Is Inside the Calendar

The decorative box promises 24 gifts: three new cross stitch patterns, needle minders, scissors, fabric, DMC thread, DMC needles, and more, all stored in a reusable keepsake box. A handy PDF guide with tips, tutorials, and ideas for all 24 items is promised alongside, plus access to a brand community group. An upgradeable finishing pack with embroidery hoops existed but sold out months before the calendar shipped.

The day-by-day contents break down roughly like this:

• Day 1: A mini bookmark project with aida fabric, a needle, and two thread colours (green and brown), enough to start a portion of the design immediately
• Day 2: Threads for the following days, including a lovely metallic skein
• Day 3: A square of fabric
• Day 4: A pattern featuring a robin with decorative details
• Day 5: A magnetic needle minder
• Day 6: DMC cross stitch needles in sizes 26 and 24
• Day 7: More threads, including the metallic one
• Day 8: Washi tape from Nutmeg and Arlo, used to prevent fabric fraying at the edges
• Days 9, 10, and 14: Fabric squares in additional colours, including a dark blue used across the brand’s background designs
• Days 11 and 16: Two more patterns, including a Santa design and one called Frosted Snowdrops
• Day 12: Ornate heron-shaped scissors with a caterpillar detail, custom made for the brand
• Day 13: A second branded needle minder
• Day 15: Another fabric square
• Day 17: Scented beeswax with winter pine essential oil
• Day 18: A matching tin for needles and accessories
• Day 19: Animal-shaped needle threaders for hooking thread through the needle eye
• Day 20: A mini rainbow cross stitch ornament with a keyring
• Day 21: A branded keychain for clipping scissors
• Day 22: Small stars and a ring used for sizing thread
• Day 23: A tally counter for counting completed stitches
• Day 24: A disco ball Christmas ornament

Each door includes a small animal fact, from goats learning accents to reindeer eyes changing colour in winter. It is a charming touch that gives the countdown personality beyond the contents themselves.

What We Liked

The single strongest quality of this calendar is completeness. Every thread needed for the projects is provided, patterns arrive in stages so you can start stitching from day one rather than waiting for future doors, and the custom-branded accessories feel made for the box rather than generic filler. The washi tape, needle minders, scissors, and threaders all serve real functions in cross stitch, and the illustrations carry a consistent festive theme across the box, tin, and accessories.

There is also genuine thought in the sequencing. Projects come first, with the threads and supplies to finish them following on subsequent days, so the calendar builds a small collection of work-in-progress pieces across December rather than dumping random items with no context.

Things to Consider Before Buying

The biggest disappointment is the beginner experience. Despite being marketed as beginner friendly, the calendar contains no printed instructions, no QR code, and no immediate access to the promised PDF guide. The brand confirmed the PDF is intentionally sent closer to December to avoid spoilers before the calendar is opened, which is fair for people opening doors on schedule but frustrating for anyone who opens everything at once. We ended up turning to the brand’s how-to videos, which are plentiful and genuinely helpful.

Second, there is no embroidery hoop in the standard calendar. The finishing pack that included one sold out months in advance, so anyone without a hoop will need to buy one separately and guess the correct size.

Third, the accessories arrive clustered at the end of the calendar rather than spaced out, and a few items, like the tally counter and sizing rings, may puzzle newcomers. Finally, importing the calendar into the US added extra cost: the original $152 payment was followed by an additional $14.72 underpaid import duty charge, bringing the total to roughly $182. This is a tariff and customs issue rather than a brand problem, but it is worth budgeting for.

Learning Curve and First Project

Cross stitch is not a quick hobby. A pattern that looks like a weekend project can take weeks or even months, a reality many first-timers underestimate. The bookmark mini project, assumed to take a couple of hours, took closer to three before finishing touches were added later. The basics are simple enough, making a second stitch over the first to form an X, but translating a printed pattern onto fabric takes genuine study for a newcomer.

For a first attempt, the finished bookmark was satisfying and genuinely enjoyable to stitch, even with a slightly wonky tree and uncertainty about how the red border fit the design. The hobby hooks you quickly, and the quality of the threads and fabric made the learning process more pleasant.

Is It Worth $147?

Value depends heavily on who you are. For a complete beginner with no supplies, the calendar delivers nearly everything needed to start multiple projects: three decent-sized patterns, a bookmark project, a mini ornament project, threads, needles, scissors, and a full set of accessories. Compared with buying a single £31 branded kit with a hoop, getting four patterns plus all this equipment starts to look like a reasonable deal. For an experienced stitcher with a stash of fabric, needles, and scissors, much of the accessory content may feel redundant, and the premium price will be harder to justify.

Buying Advice

Buy this calendar if you are new to cross stitch, have no existing supplies, and want a beautifully themed, all-in-one introduction from a small business with genuinely distinctive patterns. Buy it from the UK or budget carefully for import duties if ordering to the US. Skip it if you already own a full cross stitch kit, or wait for the finishing pack to restock if a hoop matters to you. Plan to lean on the brand’s tutorial videos and expect your first project to take several hours, not minutes.

Conclusion

The Caterpillar Cross Stitch advent calendar is a thoughtfully designed, genuinely festive countdown from a small business that clearly cares about its craft. Its patterns are the real value, its custom accessories feel special, and its completeness impresses. The beginner-friendliness claim oversells the guidance included, and the total cost after import duties is high. But for someone starting from zero who wants a beautiful, functional entry into cross stitch, it delivers a memorable December of stitching.