Everything You Need to Know about French Knots and Cross Stitch

I feel like I’ve written a lot about French knots, probably because they are one of those things that’s pretty common in cross stitch but also that give some stitchers problems. So let’s take another look at how to make French knots and why you might be having trouble.

This information comes from a great blog post from Caterpillar Cross Stitch, which notes that a lot of the success of your French knots depends on what you do before you actually make the knot.

It talks about what kinds of needles are best for making French knots (hint: not regular embroidery needles because the eye is bigger than the shaft of the needle, which makes it hard to get even tension), what other supplies you’ll need and how to cut your thread to make it easier.

It also covers how to actually go about making a French knot and some of the problems you might encounter along the way and how to fix them. This is things like your knots ending up on the back of your work, sizing issues, tension issues, having trouble pulling the thread through and more.

You’ll also find a discussion of the colonial knot as an alternative to the French knot (I’ve written about that one, too), which some stitchers find easier and it looks virtually the same as a French knot. And if you want to avoid knots altogether there are also some ideas for what to use instead.

Check out their post at Caterpillar Cross Stitch, and you’ll probably learn some things you didn’t know about French knots.

Pair it with my post at Our Daily Craft all about French knots, which is a little bit more about embroidery than cross stitch, but does have a handy chart showing knots of different twist numbers made with different numbers of thread, which I at least think is interesting.

[Photo: Caterpillar Cross Stitch]

One of the easiest ways to make a cross stitch project more personal is to add text to it. Whether you’re adding the names of people getting married to a generic floral cross stitch design, birth information to a project on theme with the new baby’s room or just adding a word or phrase that’s meaningful to you, adding words to cross stitch projects make them that much more special.

But if you’re not working with a project that already has text built in, or you want to change the text that’s there, that can feel a little daunting.

Caterpillar Cross Stitch has a great guide to adding names and words (as well as numbers) to projects, which talks you through what to consider and how to actually go about adding text to a cross stitch project successfully.

You’ll need to think about what kind of font you want to use and if you’re using back stitched letters or larger filled letters, how much space you need and how the letters work together in the text you’re planning to make sure it’s readable.

Their post includes common pitfalls such as running out a space or ending up with text that’s off center and how to avoid them (spoiler: chart out your text before you stitch!).

The whole post is really helpful if you’ve never added lettering to a project before and don’t know where to start. I like to use block letters in back stitch when learning how to add text to cross stitch, but of course there are tons of lettering options. Check out this collection of cross stitch fonts if you want to see some different things you can try.

And head over to Caterpillar Cross Stitch to get more tips for how to successfully add lettering to your cross stitch projects. They also have their own alphabet and number charts you can buy to add text to your stitching.

Have you ever added text to a cross stitch project? I’d love to hear how it went!

[Photo: Caterpillar Cross Stitch]

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