Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

Embellished Cross Stitch Finish

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DSCN1210This detail is from a finish recently posted by a Canadian stitcher who blogs at Leftover Chocolate Stitches. That is a great blog name, by the way. She remains anonymous, but her stitching speaks for itself. She has taken a simple Lizzie Kate design the “ABC’s of Aging Artfully” and made it so much more by adding charms and other embellishments to make it very special. Head over to her blog to see the entire project and even more details from it that show the other charms and specialty flosses and stitches she used to add oomph. See how she went beyond the cross-stitch. Go check it out. And, special thanks to the Kreinik Facebook page for pointing this post out in the first place. Visit them too.

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Comments

  1. That was so kind of you to include my work in your blog 🙂 I had a lot of fun altering the pattern and getting my creative juices flowing. I’ve done this to two others of LK… to me, they are just screaming to be embelished, lol… I like to think outside of the box and don’t always follow ‘rules’… just let your imagination free 🙂 Here’s a link to my stitching photos (where you’ll see To Do List, Good Marriage and ABC one… along with tons of Mill Hills… of which a few I changed, even one I made into a stuffie 🙂

    :https://www.facebook.com/helen.omalley/media_set?set=a.10151479215540926.553446.573920925&type=1
    https://www.facebook.com/helen.omalley/media_set?set=a.10150559130685926.446605.573920925&type=3

Have you read?

Printable Cross Stitch Sheets Make it Easy to Cross Stitch on Clothes

Lately I have been feeling like all of my clothes are looking a little worn or feeling a little tired. I don’t want to buy new clothes, though, so there’s been a lot of mending, altering and adding special touches to things that otherwise might get overlooked or not worn at all. 

As an example, not too long ago I added a little bit of embroidery to a T-shirt, which was a lot of fun to do and made me start eyeing all my solid-colored garments and wondering how they might look with some stitching added. 

Of course you can cross stitch on garments, too, whether T-shirts or woven tops, skirts, pants and more. But it can be tricky to transfer cross stitch designs to your garment to make stitching easier. 

Much like with embroidery, it’s great to use a water soluble stabilizer to keep your fabric in place while you stitch and to transfer your design (or your cross stitch grid at least) while you’re stitching. Then you just wash away the stabilizer when you’re done and it will look like the stitching has always been there. 

Ashley General Handmade uses Sulky Stick ‘n Stitch, which is a product I use, too. It’s easy to use and washes away cleanly. 

To make it even easier, she designed some printable cross stitch grids at different counts that you can print out to draw your own cross stitch designs, but you can also print the grid right on the Sulky, so you can stitch on top of squares and then remove them when you’re done. 

Brilliant, right? 

She has pages as big as 8 count and all the way down to 20 (remember: the bigger the number the smaller the stitches will be) that you can download and print to make your own designs and also use to make stitching on clothing easier. I’m definitely going to try this the next time I want to cross stitch on fabric!

You can grab her printables over at Ashley General Handmade.

[Photo: Ashley General Handmade]