Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

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.]

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!

Have you read?

Hanukkah Cross Stitch Projects

Hanukkah is a great reason to pull out your cross stitch fabric and thread and stitch up some fun seasonal cross stitch patterns. 

If you have trouble spelling Hanukkah (I know I do!) you’ll want to stitch up the How Do You Spell… project from SKB Cross Stitch Design. This one includes a bunch of different ways to spell the holiday, along with some symbols like a dreidel and menorah. (Technically I think all the ways to spell it are “correct.”) The pattern includes full, fractional and bask titches, and measures 8.5 by 7 inches, or 21.6 by 17.8 cm. It has the date for 2004/5785 but you can easily change the year or leave that part off. 

Another project with some fun word play is the Words to Live By chart from Sam Brie Stitches. This one includes Hanukkah related symbols and word presented crossword puzzle style, which is fun to stitch and to display. The design uses 10 colors and measures 74 by 103 stitches. It’s shown worked on 18 count fabric. 

I may have shared these before, but the Hanukkah patterns from the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery are so cute they’re definitely worth sharing again. Happy Hanukkah features a menorah, dreidels, gelt, stars and candles, and it fits in a 6-inch hoop. At 75 by 75 stitches, it comes out to 5.4 inches/13.4 cm on 14 count Aida or 28 count linen. They also have this cute little dreidel stamp cross stitch pattern, which is 39 by 49 stitches, or 2.8 by 3.5 inches (about 7 by 9 cm) on 14 count Aida or 28 count linen. 

Works By ABC has a lot of great patterns for Hanukkah, but here are just a couple to get you started. The Rules for Dreidel design is fun for kids and adults and shows the different sides of the dreidel and what it means when you land on them. The stitch count is 62 by 94 and its shown worked on 32 count linen. It calls for three colors. I also like this menorah one, which measures 44 by 49 stitches and uses two colors along with coordinating seed beads. On 32 count linen as shown (equivalent to 16 count Aida) it measures 2.75 by 3.1 inches, or almost 7 by 7.8 cm.