Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

Stitch Up a Cute Fall Greeting — Hello Pumpkin

by

I love the idea of stitching greeting cards, or really making any kinds of greeting cards to send to people. Or maybe sending cards in general. Whatever. 

This “Hello Pumpkin” chart from Gathered would be a perfect one to stitch up as a greeting card, and it’s actually shown in the pattern being used in that way. 

This project was designed by Jenny Van De Wiele for The World of Cross Stitching magazine and is being offered as a free pattern. There’s actually a whole set of these little harvest time greetings, and you can buy a digital copy of the magazine if you want to stitch any of the others. 

This one is 46 by 45 stitches, and it uses 10 colors. You could make the pumpkins any colors you like or make them in two different colors instead of four if you want to use fewer colors. 

On 14 count fabric or 28 count evenweave it measures 3.25 inches square, or about 8.5 cm. So it’s perfect for mounting onto a little card or just putting into a small frame. It would easily fit in a 4-inch hoop or a little frame of your choosing and would be cute in a display of pumpkins (handcrafted, real or otherwise). 

There are a couple of different ways that you can mount a piece of cross stitch onto a greeting card. If your card has a hole (or you can cute out a hole to fit) then you can easily tape the cross stitch to the inside of the card, using the tape to cover up the raw edges of the cross stitch fabric. 

This image shows the cross stitch on the outside of the card, but it doesn’t have instructions for how to do that. I’m inclined to think you’d want to use a spray adhesive to try to hold down every strand of the fabric, but you could also use decorative tape on the outside or finish the edges of your design with a bit of fabric or ribbon to keep it from fraying. 

You can grab this free pattern from Gathered, and check out their digital editions if you want more of the patterns. 

[Photo: Gathered]

Have you read?

Easy Ways to Fancy Up Your Biscornu

The cross stitcher behind the blog Sirious Stitches is quite into biscornu.

If you’re not, a quick primer: biscornu are three-dimensional cross-stitched objects with eight points, often with an indention in the middle that makes them look a bit like doughnuts without the hole. They can be just about any size and subject you can think of. They’re often used as pincushions but can also be seasonal decor or just decoration for any time of year. 

I’ve got a collection of biscornu cross stitch patterns here. 

Once you’ve stitched one or several (they are a little addicting) you might wonder what you can add to them to make them even more extra. 

It very much depends on the design of your biscornu and the look you are going for, but Sirious Stitches has a great post all about some of the options you might consider. 

I don’t want to give you the whole list because you need to go visit and see all of their great biscornu they’ve stitched, but one really easy thing that you can do with a lot of designs is take advantage of that center indent by adding a button, beads, silk flower or another embellishment. 

This is great to do just with a basic button from your stash that coordinates with the design and colors of the cross stitching, but it’s extra fun if you have a button that’s on theme, such as a leaf for a fall biscornu or a flower shaped button for a floral design. Add a jingle bell to a Christmas pattern, or a charm if you don’t have a button that coordinates. 

Just this one idea is sure to get you thinking about ways to embellish biscornu (not to mention other cross stitch projects) but head over to Sirious Stitches to see all of their ideas for embellishing biscornu to make these already fun projects even more fun. 

Have you ever made biscornu? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Sirious Stitches]