How to Keep Your Place in a Cross Stitch Chart

I love to help my fellow cross stitchers to make this craft easier and more enjoyable, so I love sharing tips when I come across them that will make it easier to have success.

When you’re working a small project, it’s generally pretty easy to keep track of where you are in the project relative to the chart. I usually stitch something small from one side across (or up or down) rather than from the middle out, because it’s just easier to follow the chart that way.

But when you’re working on a big project and you need it to fit exactly, starting from the center is the way to go, which can also make it harder to keep track of where you are in the pattern. Add in working in a lot of different colors, and it’s a potential recipe for confusion.

These tips on how to keep track of where you are in a cross stitch pattern from Stitched Modern are super helpful. The idea of having a working copy of you pattern that you can mark up and make notes on is a great one, so if you ever want to stitch it again you’ll have a clean copy.

I have learned through the years doing a lot more knitting than cross stitch that the more notes I can leave myself the better, and the same applies to working big cross stitch projects. Especially if there’s any possibility you might stop working on it for a short (or a long!) time, you want to make it as easy on yourself as possible when you come back to it.

Check out the tips from Stitched Modern, maybe go buy some highlighter tape, and let me know if you have any other tips for keeping your place in a cross stitch pattern.

[Photo: Stitched Modern]

I started writing this one as a designer spotlight kind of post, and then I realized when I was almost done with it that I had actually featured this designer before. It was in late 2024, so I’ll forgive myself for forgetting, but it’s worth taking another look at Mama Witch Cross Stitch. It looks like the shop has changed a bit since the last time I looked in, and you all just needed to see this amazing pattern anyway.

In the listing this one is called “whimsical opossum,” because of course it is. This little creature is sporting a straw hat and playing a banjo next to a crock of moonshine and surrounded by a wreath of pumpkins, mushrooms and other fall icons. Clicking through the images, though, I see it’s also called Possum Song, which is also pretty great.

Either way, the design is 144 by 130 stitches, which comes out to 10.29 by 9.29 inches, or about 26 by 23.5 cm on 14 count fabric.

This is not the only possum pattern offered by this shop, but you get the vibe from this one.

And to quickly check in on the rest of the shop, there are a great number of Halloween themed cross stitch patterns here, too, many with a sort of dark whimsy like mermaid skeletons, cat witches and a pumpkin-headed rider on a skeleton unicorn, to name just a few.

Another category worth noting, though it is much smaller, is “sad Victorian ghosts,” which features ghosts (sometimes in Victorian garb, sometimes not) going to the pub and the library, hanging laundry and taking a bath.

There are also a lot of Christmas designs, some sweet and some snarky, and a few creepy ones, too. Other categories include the new for 2026 “sunny patterns” (similar style motifs just with brighter colors and lighter backgrounds), as well as bookmarks and mini cross stitch designs.

[Photo: Mama Witch Cross Stitch]

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