Cross-Stitch

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Halloween Cross Stitch Cuteness from Alma Lynne

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Over the years, I have seen designers come and go. Some retire, some move on to other things, and some, sadly, pass from this life leaving their designs behind for us to remember them by.

One designer that I’d sort of lost track of was Alma Lynne. Someone asked me about her designs recently and I just assumed that she’d retired and I needed to check for her designs on eBay.

But, no! When I received a recent Herrschners catalog, there was an entire feature on Alma Lynne’s designs – both stamped and counted cross stitch. I particularly LOVE the Happy Halloween Motif collection shown here.

If you are a younger stitcher, you may not remember Alma Lynne’s classic designs from back in the day, but you should definitely check them out – and if you are like me, you will be so glad to see that she’s still offering her classic designs. To find more of her designs, just search for Alma Lynne on your favorite online site or ask for her by name at your local needlecraft shop!

Looking for more fun Halloween Cross-stitch patterns and charts? Check out these Halloween themed Cross stitch designs on Etsy.

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Have you read?

Do You Park Your Cross Stitch Thread? Try The Royal Roads Method

I have not done a lot of big cross stitch projects, but sometimes even with small projects it can be hard to decide exactly where to begin and how to work through the chart if you’re working with multiple colors. The general categories for the possible methods are known as cross country and parking. 

Cross country means that you’re working one color at a time, moving around the chart (or the section of the chart you’re working on) until you’re done with that color. Parking means you’re working in a smaller section and doing all the colors in that area, “parking” the threads by leaving them attached to the canvas but out of the way while you finish each section. 

Royal Rows is a specific way of parking named by Alison Royal, which is explored in detail on a post on Stitching Daily. 

The idea is that you’re working one “tower” of stitches at a time (she uses a section of 10 stitches across by 20 down, but you can do whatever makes sense to you). You work all the stitches of a color at a time, starting at the top left and working your way down. When you’re done with a color you can park it where needed in the section below your current tower (known as the dungeon) or in the “east tower,” which is the section to the right. 

There’s also a specific way of dealing with thread ends when you’re done with a color. This is a super simplified version (head to the blog post at Stitching Daily to get all the details) but the basic idea is that you’re working from left to right and top to bottom across the work, parking the threads in the next section when you’re done with them and systematically choosing which color to work with next. 

The whole idea of parking is kind of overwhelming to me though I will admit that it makes a lot of sense. I guess I need to try it on a smallish big project and see how it goes. Do you use the parking method of cross stitch? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Stitching Daily]