Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

Dickensian Saying

by

A beloved holiday tradition is “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens and whether you like to read the original, watch the Mikey or Muppet version, or participate in the local stage version, this free chart will allow you to create your own stitched version of Scrooge’s famous saying. Thanks to Feathers in the Nest blogger Jennifer Dalenberg for posting this free chart.

Be sure to visit her blog Feathers in the Nest for the full-size chart. (When I post about a free chart, you always want to visit the blog indicated for the full-size chart – the post here will be a thumbnail version at best. Here at Craft Gossip we always want to encourage you to visit the original post for more information about the free charts or tutorials we let you know about each day.)

Looking for more Christmas Cross Stitch patterns? Check these out on Etsy.

Next Pattern:

Comments

  1. Thank you so much for your post about my design! I feel so honored. Enjoy!!

    Jennifer
    Feathers in the Nest

Have you read?

How to Stitch with Variegated Floss

I love the look of variegated cross stitch floss and how it makes it possible to stitch with a variety of colors without changing thread, giving your project more depth and a more complex look without you having to do anything different.

Or at least not much different. I recently came across this blog post from The Copper Fox all about how to use variegated floss and it noted that many people would say it’s a good idea to complete a whole stitch (when you’re stitching whole cross stitches) with the floss before going on to the next stitch. Most of us stitch row by row, but of course if you do that with variegated yarn, it could change color along the way and you’ll end up with stitches that are half one color and half another color or a different shade.

Of course that makes total sense but I’d never thought about it.

The post includes swatches with different kinds of variegated threads to show the different between working stitch by stitch or row by row, and it doesn’t make a huge different over the small area shown but I can see how it might make a difference if you had really long rows or if you just want to make sure your stitches are a single color whenever possible.

In addition to this experiment, the post talks about other ways to work with multicolored floss, including deliberately mixing the colors among the strands of floss you are stitching with and stitching in a different order instead of right to left and top to bottom (or whatever direction you typically work) to get different effects from the thread.

It’s fun to geek out on this stuff because it can make a difference if you want to play with it, or you can just stitch on without giving it much thought, and both will give you good results.

Check out all the experiments at The Copper Fox.

Do you do anything different when you stitch with variegated floss? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: The Copper Fox]