There are few things I like as much as cross stitch these days, but eating Pasta is one of them.  That is why I was so fired up to work on my latest piece, celebrating my favorite holiday: National Pasta Day.


I’m partnering with Olive Garden, hands down the best place to celebrate National Pasta day!  My family loves the Olive Garden.  My husband always tries to beat the never ending pasta bowl (not possible) while my kids are bread stitch aficionados. I am ALL ABOUT the soup and salad.


Seriously, I’m not sure what they put in that dressing, but I could wear it as lip gloss. SO GOOD! 

Since salad dressing lip gloss wasn’t a REAL possibility, I did the next best thing. I created a set of needle minders to always have my beloved pasta and breadsticks nearby.   Olive Garden had this adorable pin set and I knew they would be perfect as magnetic needle holders:

I removed the pin backs, and added a set of two magnets.  Now they will stick onto my work and hold onto my needle during thread changes or when I want to stop working for a little while.  No more


And of course, I had to memorialize my pasta love in cross stitch!  Thus “Pasta La Vista Baby!”  was born!  (You didn’t think I could resist a cheezy play on words did you?)

A little Penne wearing some Terminator sunglasses. Oh yeah!
In honor of National Pasta Day and on behalf of Olive Garden I’m giving this pattern away for free!

ENTER YOUR EMAIL BELOW TO RECEIVE A COPY OF THIS PATTERN BY EMAIL:



The pattern is available as both a full color or single page PDF along with the DMC color key.  The stitched area of finished piece is 50 x 90 and there are only 4 floss colors which makes it a nice quick project.  It does use both full and half stitches, but not many, so it would be a great piece to get your feet wet with half stitching if you haven’t done it before.


I’d love to see photos of your finished pieces if you do decided to stitch this little guy.. I don’t want to be a PENNE in the butt, but I just thought I would ask!  And don’t forget to head to your local Olive Garden for soup, salad, breadsticks.. and of course Pasta!  
PASTA LA VISTA BABY!  And of course.. I’ll.Be.Back!

Disclosure: Thank you to Olive Garden for sponsoring this post.  I was compensated for this content, but since we love pasta, I would have said the same thing for free!