Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

October Fractal from Cross Stitch Collectibles

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I wait each month to see what the fractal from Cross Stitch Collectible will be. I haven’t been brave enough to stitch one, but I have several friends who have stitched them and they are just lovely and neat to watch as WIPs (works-in-progress) as they post on Facebook or in forums I frequent.

Along with the fractal you can purchase, each month there is a free bookmark that is inspired by or taken from the fractal of the month. The one for this month reminds me of a snowflake swirl. What do you see?

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Comments

  3. I ordered the fractal 116 pattern and all the supplies to do it with. Close to $100. Don’t buy one of the fractal patterns. The time to stitch it was not a problem, but the stitched project does not at all look like the picture. The colors are not vibrant, there is no definition, and it turns out being a really muddy-colored fuzzy piece of work. I threw it all out. It took me over two weeks to stitch one of the 28 pages. It wasn’t the time involved…happy to give it two or three years of work if it had turned out like the picture that was presented. I will never order anything from this that site again. Misrepresentation…shame on them.

Have you read?

Make Your Cross Stitch into an Iron On Patch

A while back I made a little rainbow cross stitch pattern and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it, so I turned it into a patch. My idea was that it could be used on a jacket or backpack, or you could add a pin to the back and wear it temporarily on a shirt or elsewhere. 

But what if you want to make your design more permanent? Is it possible to turn a piece of cross stitch into an iron-on design?

It turns out yes, it is, and Sirious Stitches has done it so I didn’t have to try to figure it out on my own. 

The way they did it was by using HeatnBond, an iron-on adhesive that attaches fabrics without sewing. There was still sewing involved to finish the edges of the cross stitch fabric and make it look like a purchased patch. The post shows how to do this by hand or with your sewing machine. (I just did blanket stitch edging on mine, which doesn’t look like a “real” patch but is also a lot faster.)

Once you have the patch prepared it’s a pretty easy matter of using the fusible adhesive to the back of the patch so you can then iron it onto whatever jacket, pair of jeans, bag or whatever else you might want to add it to. 

I guess I’m a little paranoid about the washability of cross stitch projects, though you could hand wash anything with an iron-on cross stitch patch as you might need to with a purchased iron-on patch, anyway. But this does look really cool and is a great option if you know you want to permanently add a cross stitch patch to a garment of bag. 

Get the full tutorial over at Sirious Stitches. Would you add an iron-on cross stitch patch to something? I’d love to hear what you would use this technique for!

[Photo: Sirious Stitches]