Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

A Great Way to Manage Thread on a Big Cross Stitch Project

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cross stitch thread management

I’ll admit that most of the cross-stitching I have done and most of what I share here are pretty small, easy projects that don’t require a lot of time, colors or effort to complete. That’s just what works for my life, and cross stitch isn’t my main hobby, so that’s the kind of project I tend to like and focus on.

But if you’re into big, artistic, complicated cross stitch patterns, this information from Peacock and Fig about the parking method of thread management might be helpful.

It explores a way to work a complex cross-stitch pattern where you work across a row and “park” the threads you aren’t using until you need them again.

It makes a lot of sense but I’d never really thought about how to do this (the hair clips are genius; bobby pins or safety pins would work, too).

Do you like complicated or large cross-stitch projects? I’d love to know how you approach them.

[Photo: Peacock and Fig.]

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Cross Stitch Cards for All Occasions

I have never stitched a greeting card, but I kind of like the idea of it. It’s a card and a gift all in one, and hopefully one the recipient will hang onto for years to come. 

This collection of easy and colorful greeting card cross stitch patterns from Susan Bates (via Gathered) are a great place to start if you want to stitch your own greeting cards. 

These text-based designs cover a lot of card-sending events, such as:

  • get well soon
  • happy birthday
  • thank you
  • thinking of you
  • congratulations
  • anniversary
  • new home
  • good luck

The lettering is done in gradients and there are other details like hearts and stars, a house key and a gift, depending on the text. There are full cross stitches and back stitch on all of the cards, and they use 15 colors for the cross stitching and six for the back stitching (and just two colors are used for both, so it’s 19 colors total). 

The designs vary a bit in size but the biggest one is 52 by 67 stitches, which comes out to 3.75 by 4.75 inches or 9.5 by 12 cm when worked on 14 count fabric or 28 count evenweave. The text suggests beads are also used in the patterns but there’s no note of them in the key, so go wild and add some beads if you like. 

Designs are worked on a price of 6 by 8 inch/15 by 20 cm fabric and then mounted to a card with a colorful baking piece of card stock behind it. This is easy to assemble with whatever cardstock greeting cards you have on hand.

You can get the free charts as a PDF from Gathered. 

Have you ever stitched your own greeting cards? I’d love to hear about it, or let me know if these inspire you to try. 

[Photo: Susan Bates via Gathered]