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

One of the easiest ways to make a cross stitch project more personal is to add text to it. Whether you’re adding the names of people getting married to a generic floral cross stitch design, birth information to a project on theme with the new baby’s room or just adding a word or phrase that’s meaningful to you, adding words to cross stitch projects make them that much more special.

But if you’re not working with a project that already has text built in, or you want to change the text that’s there, that can feel a little daunting.

Caterpillar Cross Stitch has a great guide to adding names and words (as well as numbers) to projects, which talks you through what to consider and how to actually go about adding text to a cross stitch project successfully.

You’ll need to think about what kind of font you want to use and if you’re using back stitched letters or larger filled letters, how much space you need and how the letters work together in the text you’re planning to make sure it’s readable.

Their post includes common pitfalls such as running out a space or ending up with text that’s off center and how to avoid them (spoiler: chart out your text before you stitch!).

The whole post is really helpful if you’ve never added lettering to a project before and don’t know where to start. I like to use block letters in back stitch when learning how to add text to cross stitch, but of course there are tons of lettering options. Check out this collection of cross stitch fonts if you want to see some different things you can try.

And head over to Caterpillar Cross Stitch to get more tips for how to successfully add lettering to your cross stitch projects. They also have their own alphabet and number charts you can buy to add text to your stitching.

Have you ever added text to a cross stitch project? I’d love to hear how it went!

[Photo: Caterpillar Cross Stitch]

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