Check out This Amazing Piece of Cross-Stitched Art

While it’s not cross stitch in the traditional sense, this art installation from Ana Martins, aka Aheneah, is a fantastic homage to cross stitch worked in yarn and screws.

The project, called Switch-Over, represents the carefree attitude of students at the school near this wall located in the artist’s hometown of Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal.

She says on her Instagram post about the project:

Every day, for many years, thousands of kids pass by this wall while going from home to school and from school to home. Most of the time just floating in their thoughts, lost in space, time and routine. Until their paths have to change directions. This happened to me a few years ago.

The piece uses more than 2,300 screws and 700 yards of yarn. Pretty amazing.

[Photo: Aheneah, via Pinterest.]

Next Pattern:

31+ Cross Stitch Ideas For Teacher Appreciation Gifts

I love seeing different ways that cross stitch can be worked on unusual surfaces, from strainers to chain link fences and more. One slightly more common way to add cross stitch to your home without using cross stitch fabric is to stitch on a chair base.

Chairs that have woven ratan backs and/or bases are a marker of mid-century design through the 1970s and ’80s, but there are a lot of options currently for sale if you don’t want to hunt one down at a vintage store or garage sale. Because the open blocks are built into the furniture, it’s not that difficult to imagine what cross stitch will look like on the surface.

If you have a chair you want to stitch on, or you just want to be inspired by other people’s work, check out this tutorial from Bobo Stitch all about how to stitch on a chair base. The chair they used has a round base and a long oval piece on the back of the chair that had space for stitching. (They found it on eBay.)

The post walks you through all the tools you will need to be able to cover your chair with cross stitch. They actually used ribbon to do the stitching, but you could use wool yarn or even thick cotton yarn if you wanted.

It doesn’t look like a super difficult project but I can see how it might be tedious because it’s not as easy to stitch on a chair as it is to stitch on fabric. And if you are doing a set of chairs this won’t be a quick project, but it’s well worth the effort if you want to add a bit of color and funky boho style to your chairs.

Would you do this to a chair? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

[Photo: Bobo Stitch]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?

Leave a Reply