Printables to Get Your Cross Stitch Life Organized

I think a lot of crafters this time of year are thinking about ways to get more organized, whether it’s decluttering craft supplies, organizing materials or doing a better job of keeping track of and/or finishing projects.

If you’re interested in some of these things for cross stitch, I’ve got a few printables to help you get started.

Stitch All The Things has made a free printable cross stitch journal to help you organize your stitching life. This includes pages for tracking projects (name, designer, start and finish dates, what size fabric you used and other notes); keeping track of your number of WIPs through the year; a more detailed project list that includes things like colors, plans for the finished object and what needleminder and project bag you used (which I guess could be good if you don’t finish the project so you can find it again?); pattern and kit inventories; stitchalong trackers; a stitchminder inventory (you could change the header on this one to make it a floss inventory if you’d rather); project shopping list; fabric inventory and more.

The pages can be downloaded from their website as an Excel document you can edit, or as a Google Drive document or a PDF. Some of the pages initially had years on them but that has been removed so you can use them whenever you want, and for as long as you want.

Creatively Crafting has a free cross stitch progress printable you can get by signing up for email notifications about their membership program. I did this one and you have to click through a couple of pages to join the waitlist, then confirm your subscription and the planner page comes in a separate email. It has spaces for listing the project, a floss list, what kind of fabric you’re using, the number of stitches, any notes and a place to track your progress.

[Cross stitch image by Alicja from Pixabay]

Next Pattern:

45+ Free Disney Inspired Cross-Stitch Patterns

I’ll admit to not taking as much care as I should when finishing cross stitch projects. Just like blocking in knitting or crochet, taking the time to finish a cross stitch project right means it will look its best, whether you’re making it as a gift or to keep.

And when it comes to cross stitch, the best method for finishing is washing and pressing.

Kat and Catkin and Lillie makes the argument that you should always press your finished pieces, and wash them the vast majority of the time as well.

Washing of course will help if there is any visible dirt that got on the project while stitching, but it also helps remove oils and skin cells you can’t see but that can speed up damage to your project in the long run.

Washing and pressing also help remove creases from the hoop or from storing the project, and if you use heat-erasable marking pens to grid your fabric, this will remove any visible marks.

So we’ve got the why down, but what about the how?

Kat has a great step by step tutorial on how to wash your cross stitch projects and how to iron them safely. You probably have everything you need to do this, it just takes a bit of time to go through the process. It’s certainly worth it, though, if you’ve spent a lot of time on a project and are gifting it or framing it and want to show it off to its best.

Click over to the post at Catkin and Lillie for all the details, plus some really good thoughts on times when you might not want to wash a project and how to test the colorfastness of your threads so you’ll know if a project is safe to wash.

Do you wash and press your finished cross stitch projects? I’d love to hear all about your process!

[Photo: Catkin and Lillie]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?

Leave a Reply