Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

Egyptian Cross-Stitch

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Hannah submitted this post and wow am I glad she shared her link! She writes in her blog that her friend send this bag to her from Egypt. She says, “The tag says it’s from a fair trade association for selling handicrafts, and this one was made by a group of North Sinai Bedouin women. The tag says “Each design and color combination holds social and/or cultural meaning” but totally fails to say what meaning that is. Just enough information to be frustratingly vague. … It does mention that the design is inspired by patterns used to decorate traditional Bedouin wedding galabeyas (a special type of traditional dress).”

I hope Hannah will keep us updated if she finds out more about the bag!

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Comments

  1. I am Egyptian and want to share with you some info about North Sinai cross stitching :
    ” Bedouin women are keen to show their social situation statues by the colors used in the embroidery and garment they wear. For example dress embroidered in blue worn by an old lady, or a divorced.The married woman dress is embroidered in red, while the little girl wears dresses embroidered in light colors”. Also every tribe can be known by its own stitching type on dresses.”

Have you read?

Cross Stitch Creatures from the Sea

Last fall I came across this cross stitch pattern for a sea turtle and I talked myself out of sharing it right away because tropical animals don’t feel like a “fall” thing, but now that it’s summer again, let’s take a look at some cross stitch patterns for creatures that live in or around the sea. 

This sea turtle design from Witch Wolf Web Creations is literally just a chart with no grid to help you count stitches or suggested colors, but I would print it out and add a grid to make it easier to stitch. You can work it in many colors as shown, or there’s also a black and white version so you could just do it in a single color. 

Stitch up some fish or a seahorse with this bundle of four tropical fish cross stitch patterns from LaSelva Design. It includes a clownfish, seahorse, moorish idol and blue tang, all of which vary in size and colors used, but they’re all really cute. 

Or you can stitch a tank’s worth of tropical fish with this project from SamXstitch. There are 22 fish in all on this project, which measures 153 by 153 stitches. On 14 count fabric that’s 10.93 inches or 27.75 cm. It uses 15 colors. 

I also love the jewel-toned fishies on this project from Velvet Pony Design. This one has seven fish and a seahorse and measures 113 by 140 stitches. That’s just over 8 by 10 inches or 20.5 by 25.4 cm on 14 count fabric, though you can make it smaller with a higher fabric count. It calls for 24 colors. 

This vintage design from Past Pattern Palooza Co has a whole school of little fish. The design is 120 by 260 stitches and uses 30 colors. It measures 8.57 by 18.57 inches (21.7 by 47.2 cm) on 14 count fabric. The pattern notes say there are 69 designs in total, an individual fish range from 1.5 to 3 inches, or 4.5 to 8 cm. 

You can stitch up a whole tropical world complete with coral using this design from Easy Stitching Outlet (though I don’t think this one is particularly easy). At 219 by 95 stitches, on 14 count fabric it will come out to 15.6 by 6.8 inches, or 39.73 by 17.24 cm.