Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

Cross-Stitch the United States

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I’ve written before about how cute the collection of cross-stitch patterns published by Country Living magazine. They aren’t the easiest to scroll through, but I saw a picture of this great United States cross stitch pattern on Pinterest and decided to go looking for it.

It’s from 2016 so you would have to scroll for a while to find it (but if you search for the word America it will get you there faster). The PDF to the pattern is here.

The way they did it each state is colored in, and some of the outlines get a little funky, but you could also just use the outline of the United States in a project and color in the interior with a solid color or red, white and blue stripes.

[Photo: Country Living.]

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Have you read?

Go Back to Basics with Common Cross Stitch Terms

It’s back to school time where I live, which I always feel like is a great time to learn a new skill or take a deeper dive into something that you might not have learned a lot about before. 

Usually when we are learning new hobbies we only know what we know. We learn the terms that we encounter, the skills that come up in the projects that we want to make. It’s not that we don’t care about other basics or different approaches, we just learn what we need to know to make what we want to make. 

And that’s totally fine, but sometimes it’s a good idea to go back and review the basics or learn the things you might have missed the first time. 

In that spirit I share this post from Caterpillar Cross Stitch all about basic cross stitch terms that every stitcher ought to know. 

Did you know that the little bundle of thread you use for cross stitch is called a skein, for example? Or the difference between grid size and design area in a pattern? Or that working complete stitches one at a time is known as the English method? (I didn’t know that one! Apparently doing half of the stitch across the row and then coming back and finishing it is the Danish method. Who knew?)

There’s also a little bit about getting started with confidence that might be helpful at any skill level. 

So what I’m saying is, even if you feel like you know a lot about cross stitch already, head over to Caterpillar Cross Stitch and check out their list of terms and make sure you know them all. If nothing else you’ll feel a little smarter, either because you already knew them all or you learned something new!

And if you do learn something new, I’d love to hear about it.