How to Make Colored Cross-Stitch Fabric

I have to admit I’d never thought of trying to change the color of cross-stitch cloth, especially considering all the cool colors and effects that are available to purchase these days.

But if you wanted to make a very specific color of fabric, you can do it at home. Do Small Things with Love has a tutorial for painting cross-stitch fabric with a special ingredient that makes regular paint work on fabric.

She tested it out and says the paint doesn’t affect the ability to cross stitch with the fabric.

Have you ever tried this? It seems like a lot of effort but also like it would be kind of fun.

Head to her site for the full tutorial.

[Photo: Do Small Things with Love.]

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Seasoned Cross Stitchers: What Do You Wish You Knew…

I love little cross stitch patterns, but it’s especially fun when a small cross stitch design has a lot of detail going on. That’s the case with this collection of national parks cross stitch patterns from Stitchin Madness.

This isn’t really a pattern, it’s a full-on book with designs for all 63 of the national parks in the United States (which includes the Virgin Islands). Each design is unique and shows a distinctive feature or the park or what the landscape there looks like.

The book includes a full table of contents and numbered pages to make it easy to find the design you want to make.

Each design is 40 by 40 stitches without the park name included, and 40 by 50 stitches if you add the name. They’re designed for 14 count fabric and if you make all of them you’ll use 72 colors, though each individual pattern uses a lot fewer colors than that.

These would be so fun to make as you visit different parks, or make the whole set to frame together if you’re a big travel person who loves the national parks. They’d also be fun as greeting cards or even ornaments for your tree with the year you visited added to it somewhere.

The photo above shows a nice collection of some of the patterns in hoops, but I could see them done in little frames as well. This should give you a taste for what the designs look like and might even include your favorite park (mine is Acadia because I went there on my honeymoon; it isn’t on here but you can see it on the product page.

If you’re ready to stitch the national parks, or even just a handful of them, check out this pattern book from Stitchin Madness on Etsy. I’d love to know which national park is your favorite or what you would stitch up first!

[Photo: Stitchin Madness]

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