Cross-Stitch

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Tips for Stitching on Black Fabric

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I generally like to use light colored cross stitch fabric when I work, mostly because I don’t want the frustration of not being able to see what I’m doing all that well. But I’ll admit the allure of working with dark fabric is strong, because it can really make your projects pop and it’s perfect for Halloween projects or other moody scenes.

I was happy to find this post from Stitching the Night Away that’s full of tips for making it a little easier to work with dark cross stitch fabric, because using all these tips I feel like I just might be able to pull of stitching one of these projects. 

I won’t spoil the whole article for you so you can still click over there and read all the tips, but I did want to touch on a couple of them. The first you can probably guess: good lighting.

In the case of working with black fabric, it’s probably not enough to use your usual lighting situation. You might need to work under a bright lamp or even use a head lamp or a reading light that goes around your neck, because it will shine down on your work and make it easier to see the holes in the fabric.

One thing the post mentions that I hadn’t thought of before is using pins to help you count. Similar to adding a grid to your fabric, which might be harder to do on dark fabric, you can use pins to mark out a section of stitching or help you count the number of stitches left blank between two areas of stitching. There are special pins for this purpose (which she talks about in her post) that are blunt so they don’t damage your fabric, but I imagine if you were careful with them you could use regular sewing pins for this purpose.

Head over to Stitching the Night Away to read all the tips. If you have any more insight into how to work with black cross stitch fabric more easily, I’d love to hear it!

[Photo via DMC]

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Strawberry Cross Stitch Patterns

My favorite thing about mid to late spring is local strawberries. Strawberries are fun as a graphic element, too, because they’re an interesting shape and cheerful color. Let’s stitch some strawberry cross stitch patterns.

Craft Club Co AU has this cute kind of retro strawberry pattern with a pink checkerboard background. The pattern pages doesn’t give a lot of details but it looks like is uses at least 7 colors and it says it will fit in an 8 by 10 frame when stitched on 14 count fabric.

For a classic farmhouse look, check out the strawberry pattern from Largodargento Shop. This one reminds me of little wild strawberries, and it has a bit of a mandala design with other geometric shapes.

Speaking of classics, you can also stitch a strawberry alphabet sampler from Curious Carrie Designs. It is 54 stitches square, which comes out to 3.86 inches or 9.8 cm square. It calls for 8 colors and was stitched on 32-count linen. Keep it flat or turn it into a biscornu stitched with flowers and bees.

This strawberry pincushion from The SubRosa Design is super sweet and of course could be framed instead of using it as a pincushion if you’d rather. This one is 93 stitches square, or about 5.3 inches/13.5 cm square stitched on 36 count linen as shown.

This graphic, slightly abstract strawberry design from Box and Fox is so much fun and would be great to have on your kitchen wall or in your breakfast area. It measures 98 by 141 stitches, which comes out to 7 by 10 inches or 17.78 by 25.58 cm on 14 count fabric. The design uses 6 colors.

Don’t let the mice get your strawberries! This oddly cute design from Tourmaline Pattern measures 95 by 94 stitches and uses 16 colors. I love the look of it on black fabric, because it really makes the mice and the flowers pop. On 14 count fabric this comes out to 6.7 inches or about 17 cm square.