How to Wash and Iron Your Cross Stitch Projects

When you’re just making a small cross stitch project such as a bookmark, or something that is going to be displayed in a hoop, you don’t necessarily have to give a lot of thought to finishing it by washing or ironing the project.

Of course if you get it dirty, which can totally happen just from the oil on your hands or if you’re eating (or have pets) around your project, you’ll want to wash it no matter the size. But larger projects that are going to be framed in particular benefit from a little extra attention before you declare them finished.

Notorious Needle has good tips on how to wash your cross stitch, and, if you need to, how to iron it.

It’s actually not that different from how you might wash and block a knitting or crochet project, and it’s really important to do with those big projects even if it doesn’t look like you got grime on it. That’s because the oils from our hands and the skin cells that get on the project while we stitch can discolor the fabric and even deteriorate the fibers in the fabric or the floss.

Washing is also essential if you used any water-soluable ink pens on your project, or if the design was stamped on the cross stitch fabric before you started.

Once you’ve gotten it all clean, if you still find that there are creases where your hoop was holding the project, you can also iron it.

The key with both of these steps is to treat your project with care: use lukewarm water and gentle, clear soap, don’t wring it out aggressively, don’t put a hot iron directly onto your project.

These few steps might seem like a pain when you just want to be done, but they’ll take your project from done to finished and make sure it looks as good as all the work you put into it.

Click the links about to get all the details on how to finish your projects the best possible way.

[Photo: Notorious Needle]

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How to Wash Cross Stitch Projects

My husband is a D&D player from way back and still does role playing with his friends most weekends. There are lots of great D&D cross stitch patterns, but somehow the ones that caught my eye this time have a theme of being about the D&D classes or involving dice (or both).

I love this collection of the D&D classes done as tarot cards. These would be so fun to stitch up for all the people in your party, or make the full set as one big wall hanging for the game room. There are 16 patterns total (just a few are shown here) and each one just uses three colors. The designs are from GlitchStitchAU.

This set kind of reminds me of astrological signs, though I can’t really say why. This set of 16 designs from White Raven Patterns is color coordinated so it sort of makes a rainbow if you stitch all of them. The dungeon master one is more colorful. Each one uses five or six colors and fits in a 10-inch hoop.

Combining character classes and dice we get this set of 14 designs from Stitch it Picasso. Each one includes the class name and a die with a number on it, as well as some images that make sense for that class (the bard has a lute and music notes, for example). Each design is around 90 by 90 stitches and they use 13 to 19 colors each, depending on the design.

Or you can make patches that look like dice with this D20 dice bundle from Non Player Creation. The patches are inspired by the four seasons, but you could change up the colors to suit your campaign setting if you like. They are 31 by 35 stitches and use between nine and 12 colors depending on the season.

And speaking of D20s, this little dragon might be protecting your dice or cursing them, it’s hard to tell. It’s kind of cute, though! The design is from Cross Stitch Wow and measures 80 by 95 stitches. It fits in an 8-inch hoop and uses 16 colors.

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