Cross Stitch for the Year of the Ox

While we recently celebrated the turn of the Western calendar to a new year, the Lunar New Year doesn’t happen until February 12, so there’s plenty of time to stitch something in honor of the upcoming year of the Ox.

The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery has been hard at work on a series of cross-stitch patterns honoring the members of the Lunar zodiac, and the year of the Ox pattern features a cute ox with lanterns that have the numbers 2021 on them (which you could leave off if you want it to be more timeless.

The chart measures 58 by 67 stitches, or 4.1 by 4.8 inches on 14 count Aida fabric.

You can download a PDF for $5.95 or hit the website to order a paper copy.

[Photo: The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery.]

Next Pattern:

Year of the Rabbit Cross Stitch Pattern

I am known to be really paranoid when it comes to cutting cross stitch fabric for a project. I will math it out, count, recount, think about it, worry, decide it needs to be bigger than math plus my already large margin for error suggests. If I could just be confident in choosing the correct size of fabric I’d have a lot more stitching time!

Sometimes you have a lot of extra fabric beyond where you are stitching because your fabric is too big. Or maybe you’re just working on a big project that leaves excess fabric potentially in your way when you are stitching.

Hannah Hand Makes has a post all about how to deal with excess fabric on the sides of a large cross stitch project (which is actually a podcast if you’d rather listen). She is talking more about huge stitchalong projects where you need a big piece of fabric than my particular problem of timid cutting, but the same advice applies.

I am lazy and don’t want to buy new products, so I would probably devise some sort of rolling and clamping situation with items I already have in the house, but she has some great tips for actual products you can buy that will help with this situation such as large hoops, standing frames and scroll frames. One of these solutions would certainly be worth the investment if you’re doing a year long (or otherwise long term) stitchalong or really big project where that excess fabric is going to cause problems.

Because beyond being annoying, odds are good I’m going to end up stitching right through that extra fabric and making a big mess.

Check out all the tips for working with a really big piece of cross stitch fabric over at Hannah Hand Makes.

What’s the biggest cross stitch project you’ve ever made? I’d love to hear all about it!

[Photo: Hannah Hand Makes]

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