How and Why to Cross Stitch on Plastic Canvas

When I teach hand stitching to kids I always start them on plastic canvas because it’s stable and sturdy, there’s no question where your needle should go because the holes are big and obvious, and you don’t need a hoop to do it (and you can even use yarn instead of embroidery floss, which is great for little hands).

But plastic canvas doesn’t have to just be for practice or when you’re learning or teaching kids how to cross stitch. There are a lot of reasons you might want to use it for projects.

Notorious Needle has a great post all about the pros and cons of using plastic canvas for cross stitch, as well as the difference between perforated plastic and plastic canvas. It has great advice on choosing from the different colors of plastic canvas, getting ready to stitch and how to actually work with plastic canvas to make your project.

There are even tips for joining pieces of plastic canvas together to make a project (like those classic stitched plastic canvas tissue boxes) and how to finish the edges for a smooth look.

I have always liked the idea of using plastic canvas for things like magnets, keychains and backpack charms, but once you start playing with it I imagine you’ll come up with lots of potential uses for it.

If you sign up for email updates you can get a free pattern for a lovely monarch butterfly stitches on plastic canvas, which is shown here.

Check out the blog post at Notorious Needle for all the details and great tips to get you started on your plastic canvas journey.

Have you ever worked cross stitch on plastic canvas before? I’d love to hear what you made and if you have any tips to help others!

[Photo: Notorious Needle]

How to Cross Stitch on Linen

How to Cross Stitch on Paper

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How to Railroad Your Cross Stitch

If you love patterns for frogs and sardines, animals, food, flowers and more, Happy Cross Stitchers has got you covered. With more than 1,600 patterns as of this writing, you’re almost guaranteed to find something you like.

I don’t know if I’ve missed something that cross stitch patterns featuring sardines are showing up everywhere (this is the second designer I’ve seen with them in the past month or so) but Happy Cross Stitchers has 60 sardine cross stitch patterns. They also have 200 patterns with flowers, and even more than that in their biggest category, which is animals.

Many of the animal cross stitch patterns have a modern nursery feel to them, like this set of four modern boho animal patterns featuring what I’m interpreting as owls, a moose (or it coulr be a deer), a donkey and a cow. Each individual pattern is 100 by 100 stitches and they use six or seven colors. The designs will come out to 7.1 inches or 18.14 cm when stitched on 14 count fabric.

There’s also a large number of Christmas cross stitch patterns, with lots of trees, little houses, Santas and word art. There are lots of bunnies, eggs and chicks in the Easter section.

The modern designs include lots of colorful, graphic florals. There are also well over 100 butterflies, many of which at least look like they could be inspired by real butterflies (though none of them are labeled as to what kind of butterfly they are).

You’ll also find plenty of cute and often funny cat and dog cross stitch patterns, though there are a lot more cats than dogs represented. And then there’s the food section, with patterns for fruits, different kinds of toast, a jar of pickles, doughnuts and more.

And that’s not even all there is in this store! I guess all this is a long way of saying there’s a lot of fun patterns at www.etsy.com/shop/HappyCrossStitchers on Etsy and you should go browse because you’ll probably find something you like. And if you do, I’d like to hear about it!

[Photo: Happy Cross Stitchers]

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