How to Make Cross-Stitch Earrings

I think most crafters like to show off the fact that they are crafters, but that can be difficult with some crafts that don’t lend themselves to garment making. Cross-stitch, for example, isn’t usually used on a lot of things you would wear or use outside the home.

But cross-stitched jewelry is a thing, and this tutorial from Little Stab Studios shows you how to make your own cross-stitched earrings.

Use any little pattern you like (the flowers in her example are super cute but why not hearts, skulls, or any other tiny design?) stitched on high-count fabric. Add some basic jewelry making items and skills and you’ll be making stitched jewelry for everyone you know.

Head to Little Stab Studios for all the details.

Looking for more cross-stitch jewelry? Check out these cross-stitch jewelry books we found on Amazon.

[Photo: Little Stab Studios.]

Next Pattern:

Printable Cross Stitch Graph Paper

I have never stitched a greeting card, but I kind of like the idea of it. It’s a card and a gift all in one, and hopefully one the recipient will hang onto for years to come.

This collection of easy and colorful greeting card cross stitch patterns from Susan Bates (via Gathered) are a great place to start if you want to stitch your own greeting cards.

These text-based designs cover a lot of card-sending events, such as:

get well soon
happy birthday
thank you
thinking of you
congratulations
anniversary
new home
good luck

The lettering is done in gradients and there are other details like hearts and stars, a house key and a gift, depending on the text. There are full cross stitches and back stitch on all of the cards, and they use 15 colors for the cross stitching and six for the back stitching (and just two colors are used for both, so it’s 19 colors total).

The designs vary a bit in size but the biggest one is 52 by 67 stitches, which comes out to 3.75 by 4.75 inches or 9.5 by 12 cm when worked on 14 count fabric or 28 count evenweave. The text suggests beads are also used in the patterns but there’s no note of them in the key, so go wild and add some beads if you like.

Designs are worked on a price of 6 by 8 inch/15 by 20 cm fabric and then mounted to a card with a colorful baking piece of card stock behind it. This is easy to assemble with whatever cardstock greeting cards you have on hand.

You can get the free charts as a PDF from Gathered.

Have you ever stitched your own greeting cards? I’d love to hear about it, or let me know if these inspire you to try.

[Photo: Susan Bates via Gathered]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?