Cross-Stitch

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Make Stitching Big Charts Easier by Gridding Your Fabric

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how to grid cross stitch fabric

This is a super brilliant thing to do if you are working on a large cross stitch project and getting a little lost or your stitches aren’t ending up quite where they are supposed to be.

When working from a large chart you can make grid lines on your cross-stitch fabric and on your chart, which makes it so much easier to find where you are in the pattern and where your stitches need to go as you are working.

Peacock and Fig has a full tutorial on how to do this. I feel like this makes it a little easier to work without having to be completely focused at every moment; just pay attention to the section of the grid that you are on.

Have you ever gridded your cross stitch fabric, or do you like to live dangerously? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

[Photo: Peacock and Fig.]

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Cross Stitch Patterns for Fall

Through the years I’ve shared plenty of fall and especially Halloween themed cross stitch patterns, but today I wanted to look at fall projects that don’t have anything to do with spooky season. Here’s proof that pumpkins are an all fall thing, along with leaves, acorns and sunflowers. 

The Pumpkin Season cross stitch pattern from the appropriately names Autumn Andrea has lots of pumpkins as well as fall flowers and leaves. The project is 280 by 235 stitches, which comes out to 20 by 16.79 inches (that’s 50.8 by 42.6 cm). If I can count properly it uses 51 colors. 

Teeny Weeny X Stitch has a set of 20 fall landscape cross stitch patterns, and you can stitch up one, some or the whole bunch. There are lots of trees, a couple of streams and a could of houses out in the woods, among other views. The designs vary in size a little bit but they’re all around 40 by 44 stitches (smaller than 3.3 inches/8.3 cm) when worked on 14 count fabric. If you were to stitch all of them you would need 25 colors. 

This collection of fall leaves and acorns from Box and Fox looks really familiar to me but I can’t find that I’ve shared it before so here it is. I love the graphic quality of the leaves on this one and how it feels like you could display it all the way through Thanksgiving. It is 100 by 100 stitches, or about 7.1 inches/18.14 cm square on 14 count fabric, and it uses 10 colors. 

A more rustic look comes from Blueberry Ridge Design with this Autumn Gathers pattern. It’s shown on 36 count linen and has a stitch count of 145 by 125. That comes out to 8.1 by 6.9 inches, or 20.5 by 17.5 cm. 

Probably my favorite of this whole bunch is the autumn bookshelf from Patterns by Rybka Stitch. This sweet shelf has fall-colored books as well as pumpkins, leaves and flowers. This one uses 27 colors as well as blends, and the design measures 88 by 81 stitches, which on 14 count fabric is 6.3 by 5.8 inches, or 16 by 15 cm.