Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

Haunted House Pincushion Cross Stitch Pattern

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I told myself I was done sharing Halloween cross stitch patterns, because I wanted to give you all plenty of time to finish them before it’s actually time.

But.

Then I saw this amazing 3D haunted house pincushion cross stitch pattern and I knew I just had to share it. There was no way it could wait until next year. It was all I could do not to buy the pattern immediately and start working on it before I told you all about it.

Designed by Living on the Rainbow, this little house measures about 7 centimeters (or just under 3 inches) when finished as shown, worked on 16-count fabric. But there are a lot of details packed into that tiny package, and along with the assembly required the designer suggested this pattern for experienced stitchers.

The full pattern is 23 pages long and includes detailed instructions for assembly.

You can get this pattern on Etsy, and while you are there check out all of their amazing designs. For Halloween you will find 3D spell books to stitch, a jack o’lantern/scarecrow, ghost, potion bottle and more traditional designs featuring ghosts going about their business of knitting, cross stitching, taking care of their plants and, of course, haunting the library (how else are we going to finish our TBR piles?)

There are also great designs for other holidays and themes (mostly Christmas but there are also some cute Alice in Wonderland patterns that are sort of Halloween adjacent), and they’re all just so much fun I need to stop talking so you’ll go check them out.

If you’re looking for more fun Halloween cross stitch designs, check out these posts:

[Photo: Living on the Rainbow]

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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]