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

Last 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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How to Cross Stitch a Family Portrait

I was trying to think of some different Christmas cross stitch pattern themes that I could share with you and I came up with wanting to do a post of patterns with ornaments on them that aren’t necessarily ornaments themselves.

This is a really hard term to search for, so I’m sure there is more than what I was able to find. But I love the idea of stitching up some ornaments if you don’t have space for a tree or want to send a little holiday cheer from afar. Let’s take a look at these cross stitch patterns featuring Christmas ornaments.

The bold baubles sampler from xCounting the Starsx is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. This set of 16 little ornaments would be cute propped up on a mantle or bookshelf, and of course you could stitch them individually and turn them into ornaments, too, if you wanted. The full design is 165 by 186 stitches and uses 30 colors.

If you want even more baubles that you can mix and match into your own sampler project, check out this collection from Mason Art Maison. It includes a whopping 140 cross stitch Christmas ornaments that you can combine or use on individual projects. I love the hand drawn and painted look of these. There are seven pages or ornaments, each of which is around 300 by 300 stitches, with the individual ornaments running around 70 by 70 stitches.

Looking for something smaller? This little branch with three ball ornaments from Wild Bluebell Patterns is super cute and just 59 by 43 stitches. It comes out to 4.2 by 3.1 inches (or 10.7 by 7.8 cm).

Or try this little bundle of three baubles from Ecliptica Design. They’re shown in individual frames but you could also line them up into one project. Each is 34 by 38 stitches, or 2.4 by 2.7 inches/6.2 by 6.9 cm. They use five colors and two blends each.

Snail Fishes Stitches also has a cute Christmas ornament cross stitch pattern with a variety of little ornaments. This one uses just three colors and is 63 by 64 stitches. It’s perfect for a 5 or 6 inch hoop if you stitch it on 14 count fabric.

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