Cross-Stitch

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Stitch Your Family with Help from Do-It-Yourself Stitch People

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Stitch your family portrait with help from Do-It-Yourself Stitch People bookLast month I shared a post with different tips for cross-stitching your family from Do Small Things with Love. I’ve seen online that there’s a book all about making cross-stitch portraits, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet.

The book is called Do-It-Yourself Stitch People and it’s by Elizabeth Dabczynski-Bean. I came across a great review of it of Spot of Tea Designs, and it looks like a great choice for people who would like more guidance on how to make a perfect stitched portrait of their family.

She shows how she worked out her design on graph paper, transferred the basic lines to her cross-stitch fabric and stitched out the design. This looks like a great approach for a fully customized family portrait in thread.

Have you looked at this book or made a cross-stitched family portrait before? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Spot of Tea Designs.]

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Comments

  1. Thanks foe linking to my post. I’m currently working up my second cross stitch family design as a gift and using the book as a reference since its a family of boys with a cat. I think I’ll find a lot of use from the book and highly recommend!

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Crow Cross Stitch Patterns

In all my years writing about cross stitch, I don’t think I’ve ever had a post dedicated to crow cross stitch patterns. That’s a shame, because crows are cool, and they’re a great motif to use in the fall that has a bit of a Halloween/spooky vibe without necessarily being all pumpkins and ghosts (though we have some of that, too). 

Actually, these little crow cross stitch patterns from LaSelva Design could be up in the house year round, especially if you’ve made friends with crows or are trying to cultivate your own murder. This set of four patterns is each worked in four colors, and they’re shown in 3-inch hoops, though they vary in size a little bit. 

This Art Nouveau crow from Needle Lot Designs is stunning and reminds me a bit of a tarot card. It would be the perfect thing to stitch for a witchy friend. It measures 74 by 98 stitches, which comes out to 5.25 by 7 inches or 13.4 by 17.8 cm on 14 count fabric. It uses 14 colors and has no backstitching. 

Or keep it monochrome with PandoraXstitch‘s cross cross stitch pattern. I love how this one looks like a woodcut, and it shows you that even stitching in a single color you can make something really interesting. This design is 283 by 284 stitches, which is a little more than 20 inches or 51.5 cm not quite square on 14 count fabric. The pattern includes measurements for other counts if you want to make it a different size. 

The Book of Lost Keys design from Haunted Frames feels a little more Halloween, but it doesn’t have to be. It tells the story of a mama crow whose baby is locked in a cage, but the mama has the key. The design is shown worked on 18 count fabric and measures 109 by 79 stitches. That’s 6.1 by 4.4 inches, or about 15.5 by 11 cm. It uses four colors of regular floss as well as gold metallic floss. 

Speaking of more Halloween, I love this spooky cake stand featuring a crow and other characters from Ulysses Blue Stitching. You’ll find a creepy cake, eyeball in a jar, owl, ghosts and more haunting this house. It uses nine colors and measure 109 by 143 stitches. That’s 7.4 by 9.8 inches or 19.78 by 25.94 cm on 14 count fabric. 

I also like this kind of folk art crow (or raven as the pattern calls it) sitting on a pumpkin from MIYAstitch. This one measures a manageable 71 by 81 stitches and uses seven colors. On 14 count fabric it comes out to a little more than 5 by almost 6 inches (or 13 by 15 cm). 

Another pumpkin and crow pattern (this time with a witch hat) comes from My Lovely Embroidery MB. This dare I say cute design uses seven colors as well ans is 81 by 80 stitches. That measures 5.79 by 5.71 inches, or 14.7 by 14.51 cm, on 14 count fabric. This one uses full and three-quarter stitches as well as French knots.