Ways to Make Your Cross Stitches Neater

October 8, 2024 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

When we start cross stitching, most of the time we are just focused on getting the needle into the correct hole in the fabric and keeping our tension even so that our stitching looks good. But over time you might want to refine your technique to make your stitches even neater.

One of the problems with cross stitching is that the thread tends to twist as we stitch, making stitches that don’t lie totally flat. The good news is lots of smart stitchers have figured out ways to counteract that twist and help make stitches that look better across a project.

You can read about three of these methods in depth over at HubPages, but I’ll cover them really quickly here.

The first I have talked about before and that’s railroading, which is where you split the two threads you are stitching with and take your stitch between them to keep them separate and therefore untwisted. (Read more about that here.) This is pretty easy to do and once you start doing it, will become a habit pretty quickly.

The post linked above also suggests that you can counter the twist in your thread by taking the needle through the fabric eye first instead of needle tip first when coming up from the back of the work. I’ve never tried this but it sounds like it would be pretty awkward.

Another thing that can help is just making sure that when you are stitching, the working thread is positioned above the area where you are making stitches. This doesn’t really help with the twisting, but it can help the stitches look more even and lie flatter on the fabric.

Have you tried any of these techniques? Do you have other tips for making your cross stitches neater? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

[Photo via HubPages]

Next Pattern:

How to Railroad Your Cross Stitch

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Designer Spotlight: Cross Stitch Foxy

Cross Stitch Foxy has a huge selection of cross stitch patterns perfect for gifts or using in your own home decor. As of this writing there are more than 900 patterns listed, so there’s no way I can cover them all, but let’s take a quick peek at some of the options.

As with many cross stitch designers, Cross Stitch Foxy has a lot of holiday themed patterns, including Christmas, Halloween and Easter and St. Patrick’s Day. There are patriotic American patterns, feminist patterns and so much more.

Since we’re heading into the Christmas season as I write this, I thought I’d highlight one of the more than 100 Christmas listings in the shop. These Christmas mugs would be cute to have hanging in your kitchen or anywhere else all winter long.

The full pattern is 86 by 101 stitches, which comes out to 6.1 by 7.2 inches, or 5.5 by 18 cm, when stitched on 14 count fabric. It calls for 19 colors. Of course you could also stitch a single mug if you’d rather, or put them into individual frames.

One thing that is fun about Cross Stitch Foxy’s projects is that the intention is that to some extent you can use what you have to make the projects. None of the projects include single stitches of a color, and colors can be replaced with the colors you have or use blends made up of colors you already have, making the projects more cost effective and environmentally friendly. Of course for holiday patterns you’ll want some holiday colors, but there’s wiggle room to use the threads you already own, which is nice.

In addition to the categories I already mentioned, there are many other patterns, including a wide selection of seasonal gnomes, patterns with cats and dogs, food and drink patterns and a nice collection of flowers and plants, just to name a few. There’s probably something for everyone in this store, so go check it out at Cross Stitch Foxy on Etsy.

[Photo: Cross Stitch Foxy]

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