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Patterns to Use as Filler in Cross Stitch Projects

January 31, 2025 by Sarah White

The other day I came across this post from Koekoek that has to do with a world map pattern of theirs (they also have individual countries if you’d rather). The idea is that you can fill in countries as you visit them, or just fill in different patterns to make a colorful map.

To help people wanting to fill in their maps in different ways, they posted a collection of 10 filler cross stitch patterns. These designs include things like diagonal lines, evenly spaced single stitches, checkerboards and rectangles that can help you fill a lot of space without just making a solid color or stripes.

It struck me that these design ideas would be fun to incorporate into other cross stitch projects, too.

For example you could use any of them to make a background around a cross stitch motif to make the pattern a little more dramatic or just to draw in more color.

You could use them to fill large letters, say if you were doing a monogram or an initial letter pattern for a baby’s room or a wedding.

If you stitch people in your projects you could add these designs to clothing to make them more interesting.

You could just practice these filler stitches to get used to reading and following cross stitch patterns and turn them into bookmarks, coasters or other little projects.

I’m sure there are other ways you could use them as well, and if you have some in mind I’d love to hear them.

I think this just goes to show that if you’re creative you can pull elements from different patterns and projects and use them in different ways than originally intended but still to great effect.

You can check out all of the patterns at the post on Koekoek, and maybe they’ll inspire you to try adding filler to a project you’re working on!

[Photo: Koekoek]

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Have you read?

How to Manage a Large Piece of Cross Stitch Fabric

I am known to be really paranoid when it comes to cutting cross stitch fabric for a project. I will math it out, count, recount, think about it, worry, decide it needs to be bigger than math plus my already large margin for error suggests. If I could just be confident in choosing the correct size of fabric I’d have a lot more stitching time!

Sometimes you have a lot of extra fabric beyond where you are stitching because your fabric is too big. Or maybe you’re just working on a big project that leaves excess fabric potentially in your way when you are stitching. 

Hannah Hand Makes has a post all about how to deal with excess fabric on the sides of a large cross stitch project (which is actually a podcast if you’d rather listen). She is talking more about huge stitchalong projects where you need a big piece of fabric than my particular problem of timid cutting, but the same advice applies. 

I am lazy and don’t want to buy new products, so I would probably devise some sort of rolling and clamping situation with items I already have in the house, but she has some great tips for actual products you can buy that will help with this situation such as large hoops, standing frames and scroll frames. One of these solutions would certainly be worth the investment if you’re doing a year long (or otherwise long term) stitchalong or really big project where that excess fabric is going to cause problems. 

Because beyond being annoying, odds are good I’m going to end up stitching right through that extra fabric and making a big mess. 

Check out all the tips for working with a really big piece of cross stitch fabric over at Hannah Hand Makes. 

What’s the biggest cross stitch project you’ve ever made? I’d love to hear all about it!

[Photo: Hannah Hand Makes]

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