Cross Stitch Celebrating Canadian Cities

I love the old of old fashioned travel posters, and translating those kinds of posters into cross stitch is a fun way to commemorate a trip or stitch up your favorite city.

This collection of Canada themed city travel posters from Unique Stitch Crafts would be fun to make in honor of Canada Day or just because you love Canada.

The options are for Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Quebec.

Each design includes landmarks of the city, as well as a bit of water in the foreground and a sailboat or two. Which makes me wonder if sailing sailboats is such an iconic activity in Canada, and if it is how I’ve missed that all these years.

In any case, each design is 83 by 112 stitches, which comes out to 6 by 8 inches or 15 by 20.3 cm on 14 count fabric.

The Quebec pattern uses 18 colors, and I assume the others would be similar in the number of colors they include as well. There are whole stitches and back stitches on all of the designs.

Stitch up one for your favorite city or make the set to decorate a whole wall with Canadian goodness.

And if the cities of Canada aren’t your thing, this same designer has other city travel poster style cross stitch patterns including Amsterdam, New York City, Istanbul, Prague, Sydney, Copenhagen, Chicago and Paris to name a few. There are also some for different states and countries like Arizona, Colorado and Alaska, China and Scotland.

There are also some similarly styled projects featuring American national parks like Mammoth Cave, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. So there are lots of other options to commemorate your travels in cross stitch, or to stitch up places you live or places you love, so take some time to click through and check out the other patterns, too.

[Photo: Unique Stitch Crafts]

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Fourth of July Cross Stitch Patterns

One of the most common supplies for cross stitch, aside from fabric, needles and floss, is an embroidery hoop. A hoop isn’t needed for every project, and indeed there are some stitchers who prefer not to use them at all. I generally don’t use a hoop when I’m working on a small cross stitch project, especially something that’s shape isn’t conducive to using a hoop (like a bookmark).

But embroidery hoops can be really helpful for cross stitch because they hold your fabric at an even tension, which allows you to stitch more evenly without any more work on your part. It’s great for beginners to use hoops because the tension on the fabric can both help make your stitches more even and make the holes in the fabric a little easier to see.

I’ll admit to always just buying whatever hoop is available in the right size when I’m ready to start a project without giving it much more thought than that. But there are things you should consider when choosing among the different kinds of hoops, which Caterpillar Cross Stitch covers in their great guide to embroidery hoops.

The post walks you through wooden, plastic, spring tension and flexi hoops (which I’ll admit to having never heard of; they’re made of vinyl and plastic apparently), as well as Q-Snap frames, which aren’t really hoops because they’re made of plastic tubes that you snap together in the size and shape you need.

It also covers what size hoop you should use for the project you’re working on and how to actually use a hoop in the right way.

Whether you’re new to cross stitch or more seasoned, you’re sure to pick up a tip or a product to try in this post, so go check it out over at Caterpillar Cross Stitch.

Do you have a favorite kind of embroidery hoop to use for cross stitch, or do you go without? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

[Photo: Caterpillar Cross Stitch]

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