How to Move Around a Cross Stitch Pattern

As with so many things in crafting and in life, there’s no right way to cross stitch. You can work all of one color in a project, skipping around the fabric as you do, or you can work stitch by stitch across the fabric, changing colors as you go. Or something in between!

But if you’re new to cross stitch and can’t figure out how to go about stitching a project, this post from Bobo Stitch might help. It talks about where to start and how to get from there to the next place you should stitch and so on around the project.

I’m not the best at doing things in a way that makes sense, but I will say that for me, the most important thing is to find the center of the fabric and the center of the pattern and start there.

This way you know your pattern is oriented properly on the fabric, meaning hopefully you won’t run out of fabric and your project will be centered for easier finishing.

From there I usually will try to work all the nearby stitches in the same color I started with, but admittedly it gets pretty chaotic pretty fast.

This post shows you exactly on the chart where you are and what you might want to stitch next to keep in the same color on the project and looks at how to skip stitches as you move from one place to another filling in with one color. Whether you start with the background color or another color is somewhat up to you or what color happens to be in the middle, but this is a good overview of how and where to get started stitching on a project.

Read all about it over at Bobo Stitch.

I’d love to know how you move around on a cross stitch project. Do you try to work all of one color at a time or work from the center out, or something else?

[Photo: Bobo Stitch]

As a knitter, I love a good sheep motif, so let’s take a look at some cute sheep cross stitch patterns.

If you want to stitch a little sheep, this mini square from Good Dog Needleworks is a nice choice. It uses just three colors and measures 32 by 32 stitches. That’s 2.2 inches or about 5.5 cm square if you stitch it on 14 count fabric.

I also love these two little sheep, which you can stitch together or in individual hoops and shown. The designs are form Threadbound Art and use six colors. They are slightly different in size, with one being 21 by 17 stitches and the other 21 by 20. They fit in four inch frames if you work them on 14 count fabric.

You can stitch a sweet sheep bookmark with this design from Kits by SA Stitch. This is not for the person who doesn’t like back stitch, because there’s a lot of that here, but it is really cute. It measures 30 by 91 stitches and uses 10 colors. That will make your bookmark about 2.4 by 6.5 inches, or 6 by 16.5 cm on 14 count fabric.

Stitch a pretty scene of sheep in a meadow with this design from Motok Nytok. It uses 21 colors and the design is 99 by 73 stitches. On 14 count fabric that makes it about 7.07 by 5.21 inches, or 17.96 by 13.24 cm.

This yarn full of cross stitch sheep has a bit of a knitting twist because the sheep all look like they have sweaters on. The design is from Soda Stitch Design and it measures 179 by 216 stitches. The full design uses 27 colors. On 14 count fabric it will work out to 12.78 by 15.42 inches, or 32.48 by 39.19 cm.

Another great one with a knitting theme is this one where the wool is coming off the sheep and straight onto the needles. This one is from Happy Cross Stitchers and uses 12 colors. The pattern is 137 by 137 stitches, which comes out to 9.7 inches or 24.86 cm square on 14 count fabric. This would be a fun one to stitch for the knitter in your life (even if that is you).

Or you can stitch the field of sheep of a knitter’s dreams with the Happy Sheep chart from Charts and Stuff. These per-colored sheep can be stitched as shown or worked in any colors you like. The eyes are French knots but you can just stitch them in white if you’d rather.

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