Mid-Century Style Cross Stitch Patterns

When I was looking for pattern for my recent post on retro style cross stitch patterns (which you should definitely check out if you missed it because there’s some cute stuff in there!), I came across Etsy seller Mid-Century Maude and decided I needed to do a whole post on these fun retro designs.

Maude focuses on 1950s-style home decor, from kitchy cross stitch to custom wooden signs for your beach house, lake house or cocktail space, and super cute and stylish retro-modern style travel and art posters.

But of course what we’re most interested in here is the cross stitch patterns. As of this writing Maude has more than 20, mostly involving animals like cats, dogs and birds. There are also fun designs for your retro cocktail bar/rumpus room, like this vintage cocktail sampler.

One of my favorites is the teapot pattern, which features three tea kettles in the perfect harvest gold, avocado green and rusty orange to evoke the mid-century era. Add in some atomic-era stars and you’ve got the perfect retro touch for your MCM kitchen or dining room.

Since we’re headed into the holiday season I also wanted to point out this super cute retro reindeer Christmas cross stitch pattern. As shown it was worked on 22 count fabric, so it fits in a 4-inch hoop, but you can use 14 or whatever count fabric you have handy and just know that it will make a corresponding larger design. It is 68 by 65 stitches and looks like about seven colors. It uses full stitches, 3/4 stitches and back stitches.

Need to know about partial cross stitches? Here’s a guide to help you out, with a great little chart showing all the options.

Check out all of Mid-Century Maude’s cross stitch designs and other goodies, and let me know what your favorite is.

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35+ Sunflower Cross Stitch Patterns

One of the most common problems that cross stitchers at all skill levels have is that the cross stitch fabric can start fraying while you stitch.

Beginner cross stitchers might wonder why this happens and if there is something they are doing wrong to cause it.

The reason cross stitch fabric frays is because it is a woven fabric, and the nature of any kind of woven fabric (whether that’s cross stitch fabric, a torn up towel or a piece of fabric you’re going to sew) is that it wants to fray.

It’s not necessarily a huge deal if you cross stitch fabric starts fraying mid-project if you have left a lot of extra fabric around your stitching. But if there’s not much fabric to spare in order to be able to finish the project the way you want, you’ll want to do something to stop the fraying.

When I was growing up I remember my mom using masking tape for this purpose, but it turns out there are lots of different things that you can do to stop your cross stitch fabric from fraying.

Craft with Cartwright came up with 15 different things that you can try, which seems like a lot, but that just means you have lots of different things you can try.

If you don’t want to buy something, you can stitch along the edges. If you already have supplies like tape or glue, or access to pinking shears or a serger, there are lots of options you can try.

Some of these are more permanent than others, so it will depend a little bit on how you want to finish your cross stitch project as to which is the best choice for you. It’s a great idea to read through the whole list just so you can have them in the back of yoru mind the next time you start a project and think about how you would like to protect it.

You can find the whole list at Craft with Cartwright.

How do you like to stop fraying on your cross stitch projects? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

[Photo: Craft with Cartwright]

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