Book Review – Just CrossStitch

Home is where the heart is, and in this June issue of Just CrossStitch we invite you to stitch peace and joy into your home as you celebrate the simple life. You’ll love these 19 charming designs that are guaranteed to warm your heart and refresh your soul.

Give your home a touch of farmhouse flair with the Three French Hens. A trio of dignified hens, each worked in a different colorway, holds court in this charming design that showcases a variety of specialty stitches, including Rhodes stitch, elongated cross stitch, lazy daisy and Florentine stitch.
Turn heads at the farmers market with the Berlin Work Tote! This delightful design showcases a vibrant floral pattern and brings back the classical style of 19th century Berlin work, but in modern colors and style.
All hearts lead home in the Home Is Where the Heart Is Pillow. This lovely project features cheerful, sunny houses surrounded by dainty birds and hearts, all framed by a cross-stitched gingham border.

Plus, you won’t want to miss our “The Sampler Sleuth” feature! This month explores the heartfelt bonding tradition of social stitching as needlework skills were passed down from generation to generation. Download (or subscribe!) today!

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35+ Sunflower Cross Stitch Patterns

A while back I made a little rainbow cross stitch pattern and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it, so I turned it into a patch. My idea was that it could be used on a jacket or backpack, or you could add a pin to the back and wear it temporarily on a shirt or elsewhere.

But what if you want to make your design more permanent? Is it possible to turn a piece of cross stitch into an iron-on design?

It turns out yes, it is, and Sirious Stitches has done it so I didn’t have to try to figure it out on my own.

The way they did it was by using HeatnBond, an iron-on adhesive that attaches fabrics without sewing. There was still sewing involved to finish the edges of the cross stitch fabric and make it look like a purchased patch. The post shows how to do this by hand or with your sewing machine. (I just did blanket stitch edging on mine, which doesn’t look like a “real” patch but is also a lot faster.)

Once you have the patch prepared it’s a pretty easy matter of using the fusible adhesive to the back of the patch so you can then iron it onto whatever jacket, pair of jeans, bag or whatever else you might want to add it to.

I guess I’m a little paranoid about the washability of cross stitch projects, though you could hand wash anything with an iron-on cross stitch patch as you might need to with a purchased iron-on patch, anyway. But this does look really cool and is a great option if you know you want to permanently add a cross stitch patch to a garment of bag.

Get the full tutorial over at Sirious Stitches. Would you add an iron-on cross stitch patch to something? I’d love to hear what you would use this technique for!

[Photo: Sirious Stitches]

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