Project Idea: Cross Stitch Napkin Ring

This seems like a project that would be great for spring, maybe even to stitch up a bunch of for your Easter table. Koekoek has a free pattern for a set of napkin rings that you could take in a lot of different directions.

The original chart is by Gerda, and it uses a scalloped edged cross stitch fabric ribbon that reminds me of the bookmark cross stitch blanks you can buy. You could of course cut your own fabric to size and finish the edges with ribbon or by sewing blanket stitch on the edges if you’d rather.

This gave me the idea that you could use anything that fits on a bookmark as a napkin ring, though of course it would be sideways in comparison. But it works for flowers, geometrical designs and other little motifs that are symmetrical. You could even do it with a word and just flip the letters so they’re stitched sideways along the fabric instead of up and down.

These would be cute, to keep the Easter theme going, with a row of little Easter eggs or other mini cross stitch patterns for Easter. But really any kind of flower, any little holiday motif, rattles and bottles for a baby shower, the ideas for how you could use these are limitless.

The pattern is available as a free PDF from Koekoek, and the original design is 83 by 96 stitches and worked on a ribbon that’s 5 by 19 cm (about 2 by 7.5 inches). It calls for six colors and shows them used in different ways to make flowers with petals of different colors. You could also put a bead in the center of the flowers rather than using a single white stitch just to make it a little fancier.

Those are some of my ideas; how would you run with this cross stitch napkin ring design?

[Photo: Koekoek]

30 Bookmarks To Cross Stitch For Kids

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30 Bookmarks To Cross Stitch For Kids

I love the look of variegated cross stitch floss and how it makes it possible to stitch with a variety of colors without changing thread, giving your project more depth and a more complex look without you having to do anything different.

Or at least not much different. I recently came across this blog post from The Copper Fox all about how to use variegated floss and it noted that many people would say it’s a good idea to complete a whole stitch (when you’re stitching whole cross stitches) with the floss before going on to the next stitch. Most of us stitch row by row, but of course if you do that with variegated yarn, it could change color along the way and you’ll end up with stitches that are half one color and half another color or a different shade.

Of course that makes total sense but I’d never thought about it.

The post includes swatches with different kinds of variegated threads to show the different between working stitch by stitch or row by row, and it doesn’t make a huge different over the small area shown but I can see how it might make a difference if you had really long rows or if you just want to make sure your stitches are a single color whenever possible.

In addition to this experiment, the post talks about other ways to work with multicolored floss, including deliberately mixing the colors among the strands of floss you are stitching with and stitching in a different order instead of right to left and top to bottom (or whatever direction you typically work) to get different effects from the thread.

It’s fun to geek out on this stuff because it can make a difference if you want to play with it, or you can just stitch on without giving it much thought, and both will give you good results.

Check out all the experiments at The Copper Fox.

Do you do anything different when you stitch with variegated floss? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: The Copper Fox]

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