This detail is from a finish recently posted by a Canadian stitcher who blogs at Leftover Chocolate Stitches. That is a great blog name, by the way. She remains anonymous, but her stitching speaks for itself. She has taken a simple Lizzie Kate design the “ABC’s of Aging Artfully” and made it so much more by adding charms and other embellishments to make it very special. Head over to her blog to see the entire project and even more details from it that show the other charms and specialty flosses and stitches she used to add oomph. See how she went beyond the cross-stitch. Go check it out. And, special thanks to the Kreinik Facebook page for pointing this post out in the first place. Visit them too.
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An Easy Way to Keep Cross Stitch Fabric from Fraying
If you’ve been cross stitching for a while, you might have heard of this hack before, but for our newer stitchers I wanted to mention it since I came across it again recently on the Koekoek blog.
One of the potential problems with working with cross stitch fabric is that it is woven, so it can fray along the edges while you are stitching. If your fabric is bigger than you need for your project this is merely annoying, but if you’ve cut your fabric to the size you want your project to be when you frame it, you don’t really want to lose a lot of fabric on the sides.
There are lots of potential ways to stop this fraying, including stitching the edges with blanket stitch, but if you don’t want to take that kind of time on something that other people will never see, an easy way to stop the fray is with painter’s tape.
My mom used to do this on her projects (I think she used masking tape, not painter’s tape, but it’s the same idea) and it is helpful, especially if you’re working on a big project that’s going to be exposed to potential fraying for a long time.
Of course you’ll want to remove the tape when you’re done stitching, and then you can finish the edges in another way or just tuck them inside your frame, depending on how you plan to finish the project.
I also sometimes use tape to position a project in a frame, like I did with this upcycled yarn wrapped picture frame that has a cross stitch piece in it. Painter’s tape is nice because it removes easily and cleanly and is easy to reposition if you need to move your project around or you decide you don’t want it framed like that any more.
Learn all the details of this technique over at the Koekoek blog. And let me know what you do to stabilize the edges of your projects while you’re stitching!
[Photo: Koekoek]
That was so kind of you to include my work in your blog 🙂 I had a lot of fun altering the pattern and getting my creative juices flowing. I’ve done this to two others of LK… to me, they are just screaming to be embelished, lol… I like to think outside of the box and don’t always follow ‘rules’… just let your imagination free 🙂 Here’s a link to my stitching photos (where you’ll see To Do List, Good Marriage and ABC one… along with tons of Mill Hills… of which a few I changed, even one I made into a stuffie 🙂
:https://www.facebook.com/helen.omalley/media_set?set=a.10151479215540926.553446.573920925&type=1
https://www.facebook.com/helen.omalley/media_set?set=a.10150559130685926.446605.573920925&type=3
Great post on Embellished Cross Stitch Finish ..
It is without doubt one of the best that I?ve checked out in quite a while.
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