Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

How to Grid Cross Stitch Fabric

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I’ve started (just barely, as you can see) a relatively big/complicated cross stitch project (the Baba Yaga house from Happy Little Mouse I told you about a while ago) and I knew that for this project I was going to need a little help keeping track of where I was and what I needed to do next.

Adding grids to your cross stitch fabric is a quick and easy way to help yourself when you’re working on a big project. Your chart will have grids marking off every 10 stitches and every 10 rows, so having those same markings on your fabric can only make it easier for you to follow along.

There are a few main ways to do this, which include marking the grid with thread (either embroidery floss, sewing thread, thread marketed for this purpose, or even fishing line!) or using fabric marking tools to draw the grid. Using a ruler when you do this helps a lot. Mine are still not that straight.

You can also buy cross stitch fabric that’s already marked, which of course makes it a lot easier, but it’s kind of expensive.

When marking your fabric it helps to know where the center of your fabric is, as well as where the center of the chart is relative to the grid marks so you can line them up.

This makes it a lot easier to orient yourself in the chart, and if you have a lot of one color all together it can make it easier to count stitches. Say you had 23 stitches in a row of the same color; stitching across two squares plus three stitches is a lot easier to keep track of than having to manually count them as you go.

Want to learn more about gridding cross stitch fabric and why you would want to? Check out my post all about ways to grid cross stitch fabric over at Our Daily Craft.

[Photo: Our Daily Craft]

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Fancy Pumpkin Cross Stitch Patterns

If you’re ready to move beyond basic, solid orange pumpkins, check out these pumpkin cross stitch patterns that are just a little bit fancier with some kind of pattern on the pumpkin. 

Keep it simple and rustic with this plaid pumpkin form Cross Stitch with Art. You can make the plaid whatever colors you want to match your decor, or keep with the Halloween color palette. It uses three colors and comes out to about 6 inches/15.24 cm square when you stitch it on 14 count fabric. 

Mamaida Pattern has this cute pumpkin with a vine in the negative space. Since that portion isn’t actually stitched (though you could make it green if you like) that makes this pattern pretty easy. It uses just two colors and measures 108 by 110 stitches. That’s about 7.7 by 7.9 inches or 19.6 by 20 cm on 14 count fabric. 

Speaking of negative space, this design by Tinsel Cross Stitch blows out the pumpkin a bit so the ridges are negative space and the colors here too have kind of a vineing effect. This design is 98 by 113 stitches and uses three colors. It measures 7 by a little more than 8 inches, or 17.78 by 20.5 cm on 14 count fabric.

Get even more detailed with the carving effect on this pumpkin cross stitch pattern from Anemone Patterns. This one is 85 by 83 stitches, which comes out to 6.1 by 5.9 inches (15.4 by 15.1 cm).

In a similar vein but a different color, there’s this pretty green pumpkin from Crystal Feather Crafts. Of course you could make it any color you like, but I always like to remind people that even in nature not all pumpkins are orange. This design measures 101 by 93 stitches, which is 7.2 by 6.6 inches/18.3 by 16.9 cm. 

And speaking of color, if you want to stitch a pumpkin with boho vibes, this one from Stitch Craft Creatives is probably the one for you. At 200 stitches square, it comes out to 14.4 inches or 36.3 cm square on 14 count fabric. It uses 14 colors for a very vibrant pumpkin!