How to Make French Knots, or What to Do Instead

I happen to really like French knots. I think they’re fun to make and I’ve written a lot about how to make French knots, how they look different depending on how many strands of thread you use and how many times you wrap the needle, and how to use them in projects.

But some people struggle with French knots or just don’t like the look. Lately I’ve tried using French knots in a couple of projects and didn’t love the result because I felt like they were just too big for what I was trying to do, like they stood out too much.

So what’s a stitcher who doesn’t love French knots (or doesn’t love them for a particular application) to do?

Sirious Stitches has a great post about how to make French knots and alternatives to French knots you might know about or might not.

One thing that is great about this post is it has multiple links to tutorials, both photo and video, for French knots and colonial knots. If you don’t know about colonial knots, they’re basically like making a figure 8 around the needle instead of straight wrapping.

And of course there are other options if you don’t like either of these. One thing they suggest is using beads instead of knots, which is probably just the solution I needed for the project where I wasn’t loving the look of a knot.

You can use any size and finish of bead you like to give your project a different look, and I think something plain without a lot of sparkle would have been a great addition to my project (the knot was the dot on a semicolon).

Do you like to use French knots or do you try to avoid them? Check out the post at Sirious Stitches to see all your options and let me know if you’re going to try a different way in your next cross stitch project.

[Photo: Sirious Stitches]

If you’re someone whose favorite color is all of them, or you know someone like that (in my world it’s my daughter!) this color wheel bouquet cross stitch pattern is one you might enjoy stitching.

It’s from Works by ABC and it features a rainbow of flowers stitches around the outside, with smaller flowers on the inside and a multicolored design in the middle that could be another flower but I’m not really sure what it’s supposed to be.

The flowers are in 16 colors, and the full pattern uses 18 colors (with the addition of the green stems and the color of the petals and vines that go around the flowers).

The design is 133 by 133 stitches, which comes out to 9.5 inches square (or 24.13 cm) when worked on 14 count fabric or 28 count over two threads. The pattern listing includes sizing for other counts if you want to make the project a little smaller. The sample was actually worked on 32 count linen, which is the same as 16 count Aida and comes out to 8.3 inches/21 cm.

Despite all the colors I feel like this wouldn’t be too difficult a project to stitch because the flowers are all the same so as long as your count is right on the first one you should be able to stitch them all the same. And it’s so much more fun than a regular color wheel for an art room or to stitch for an artist in your life.

You can grab the pattern from Works By ABC on Etsy.

Something about all the colors on this one (and that the designer also has temperature cross stitch patterns, I suppose) reminds me of temperature projects. This one has too many flowers to document a year, but if you’re looking for a temperature project I’ve collected a bunch of temperature cross stitch patterns, including one by this same designer that also uses flowers. So fun!

[Photo: Works By ABC]

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