Seven Ways to Anchor Your Cross Stitches

I will fully and openly admit to being the sort of cross stitcher who starts her threads with a knot. I don’t usually care what the back of my work looks like, and I don’t need to it be perfectly smooth, so I’ve never had a problem doing it that way.

I always tie my knots like I show in this post on tying knots for hand sewing, which makes a large knot but it’s sturdy and it won’t pull through the hole in the cross stitch fabric.

I know there are other ways, and potentially better ways, to go about starting a cross stitch project or working in a new piece of floss. If you’re wondering what they might be, check out this very comprehensive post from Sirious Stitches, which includes seven different options for securing your thread.

From techniques that bury the thread end behind the stitches as you work to various ways to use knots on the back to a couple of versions of loop stitches and one process that definitely looks like way too much effort, this is a great overview of your options if you’ve never really thought about how you start stitching or if there’s a “better” way.

Note here that better is totally subjective, and if you don’t mind knots on the back of your work and that’s the way you’re comfortable working, that’s probably the best method for you.

If on the other hand you need the back of your work to be pretty, because, for instance, you’re entering it in a competition of some sort, or the back will be visible for some reason, by all means check out another way to start your stitching that’s a little less intrusive.

Have you ever given any thought to how you anchor your stitches when you start a new thread of cross stitch? Are you on team never knot, or do you always start with a knot? Let’s talk about it!

[Photo: Sirius Stitches]

How to Frame Cross Stitch with Lacing

How to Wash Cross Stitch Projects

How to Make Colored Cross-Stitch Fabric

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]

Have you read?