Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

Do You Sign Your Stitches?

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I came across this post the other day from Two Little Kits about signing your cross stitch projects. I know a lot of people do add their initials and the year to their makes, but it’s not something I have ever done (maybe because I’ve only ever made small projects and I would feel differently if I successfully stitched something larger/more complex?).

The post shows lots of different options for how the author signs her projects, which might give you an idea of how to do it yourself if you want to.

Check out her post for all the options and details, and let me know: do you sign your stitches? Are you going to start now?

[Photo: Two Little Kits.]

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Comments

  1. I’ve noticed that signing cross stitch or embroidery projects to be an increasing trend. Especially with people who have been working on samplers and want to increase the meaning the piece has.

    Personally, I’ve never been in the habit of doing it. Mostly because I’ve never thought to do it.

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]