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]

Siren Stitchworks has cross stitch patterns that feel like old samplers (and some of them are in fact historical reproductions) even when they are modern designs. They have patriotic patterns, biscornus, pop culture patterns and more so let’s take a look.

One of the projects that caught my eye was the Mexican menagerie, a set of five Mexican folk art inspired creatures. There’s a bird, horses, dragons, alligators and cats on these designs, which you can make into tiny pillow or ornaments.

The pattern notes don’t say how many colors are used but it doesn’t look like any of them have more than five colors. It does note the smallest pattern is 59 by 59 stitches, and the largest is 82 by 68 stitches. They also only use full cross stitches.

The category with the largest number of entries (which is still only 12 as of this writing; this is a small shop) is called ornaments and smalls. It includes this menagerie and another Mexican animal collection, as well as traditional looking patterns with a twist, such as a little pattern with Yule goats, a needlebook cover that looks like a tombstone and alphabet samplers that include Greek, Latin and Hebrew.

There are also a bunch of samplers, divided into monochrome, traditional and reproduction samplers. There are some fun ones in the monochrome department, including a Titanic sampler and an aloha design with a pineapple motif. Traditional samplers include some patriotic designs (and a gorgeous folk art resist fist), as well as a really fat cat.

And the reproduction samplers include fun fonts, florals and birds like you’d expect from old sampler designs.

In addition you’ll find a few pop culture designs (mostly Game of Thrones inspired samplers for different houses), biscornus include a couple Chinese zodiac designs, and a few needle minders for sale.

Check out all the fun designs at Siren Stitchworks on Etsy.

[Photo: Siren Stitchworks]

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