Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

Make Tiny Cross Stitch Magnets

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I’ve been trying to come up with some different ways to use cross stitch this year, and one of the things I wanted to try was making cross stitch magnets.

I had the idea to use bottle caps as the base for the magnets because I’ve made a few magnets of that size before. Also we happen to have a lot of those little button magnets, which are the perfect size to go on the back of a bottle cap so you can’t see it on the other side.

I figure out that you get a space of about 10 by 10 stitches using 14 count fabric, which is plenty of space for a tiny bit of cross stitch. If you have any minis that little you can use whatever design you like, or grab some graph paper and design your own.

In the blog post linked below I also have a few simple designs I used on mine, including a heart, star, smiley face and square. You could stitch out an initial (or do the whole alphabet to make your own alphabet magnets amazingly adorable), make emojis, tiny flowers, whatever you like. 

Check out this post on mini Christmas cross stitch patterns or this one on Easter minis for more ideas of things that might fit in a tiny space.

Each one of these takes just a few minutes to make and they’re a great handmade addition to your magnet board or fridge.

You can get the full photo tutorial over at Our Daily Craft. There’s also a video that walks you through the entire process if you need or want more details.

Would you make mini cross stitch magnets? What sort of tiny design would you like to stitch on one of these little projects? Or how else would you make a magnet that incorporates cross stitch? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Have you read?

Cross Stitch on Anything with Waste Canvas

Long ago when I was in 4-H, the club made a quilt for our leader when she was having a baby. It was made of green and white blocks and some of the white blocks had four-leaf clovers cross stitched on them. 

That’s the one and only time I remember using waste canvas to cross stitch on fabric, but I think about it a lot when I consider stitching on other fabrics that don’t have built in blocks. 

Using waste canvas allows you to superimpose a grid onto fabric so you can follow a cross stitch pattern and stitch on the fabric, then remove the waste fabric, leaving just the original fabric and the stitching behind. 

It’s relatively easy to use, but it’s great to have a tutorial and some tips to work from the first time you do it. I think we were just winging it honestly but it turned out fine in the end. 

There’s a great post with lots of photos over at Koekoek that shows you how to set yourself up for waste canvas stitching success, how to actually do the stitching and how to remove the waste canvas. They call that part fun but I don’t agree as far as I can remember. I think the tediousness of pulling out the waste canvas threads is a big part of what has kept me from getting more and using it in different projects. 

I’d love to add a bit of cross stitch to some clothing, or to a piece of fabric to then sew into a pillow or another project. (They show a pillow in the blog post, but you could also do this to make cloth napkins, a tablecloth or any number of other projects.) Maybe reading all about it will motivate me to give it another try!

Have you ever worked with waste canvas? I’d love to know how it went. 

[Photo: Koekoek]