Stitch a Summer Scene Because You Know You’re Ready

We are so. close. to the end of the school year here. Literally counting down the days. We’re especially excited this year because we’re heading to the beach for our vacation within days of the end of school.

If you’re longing for the beach, too, this beach hut cross stitch pattern might not actually make it better, but at least it will keep you in the summer spirit.

The pattern was designed by Anna Field for her book Sand Sea and Cross Stitch, and is presented on Sew and So. It features a sun, fish, waves and a little striped cabana, all of which sounds pretty perfect to me right about now.

The design uses eight colors and is the perfect size for a card or a wee wall hanging.

The rest of the book looks super sweet, too, if you have a nautical theme in your home.

[Photo: Sew and So.]

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Cross Stitch Patterns Inspired by the Beach

I have not done a lot of big cross stitch projects, but sometimes even with small projects it can be hard to decide exactly where to begin and how to work through the chart if you’re working with multiple colors. The general categories for the possible methods are known as cross country and parking.

Cross country means that you’re working one color at a time, moving around the chart (or the section of the chart you’re working on) until you’re done with that color. Parking means you’re working in a smaller section and doing all the colors in that area, “parking” the threads by leaving them attached to the canvas but out of the way while you finish each section.

Royal Rows is a specific way of parking named by Alison Royal, which is explored in detail on a post on Stitching Daily.

The idea is that you’re working one “tower” of stitches at a time (she uses a section of 10 stitches across by 20 down, but you can do whatever makes sense to you). You work all the stitches of a color at a time, starting at the top left and working your way down. When you’re done with a color you can park it where needed in the section below your current tower (known as the dungeon) or in the “east tower,” which is the section to the right.

There’s also a specific way of dealing with thread ends when you’re done with a color. This is a super simplified version (head to the blog post at Stitching Daily to get all the details) but the basic idea is that you’re working from left to right and top to bottom across the work, parking the threads in the next section when you’re done with them and systematically choosing which color to work with next.

The whole idea of parking is kind of overwhelming to me though I will admit that it makes a lot of sense. I guess I need to try it on a smallish big project and see how it goes. Do you use the parking method of cross stitch? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Stitching Daily]

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