Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint
What count fabric do you prefer? I usually prefer stitching on 28-count evenweave and 18-count Aida
myself. The older I get, the more I am liking 14-count Aida though! Let us know what count you prefer in the comments section below. Has it changed over the years?
The fabric show here is Light Plum Hand Dyed 22-count fabric from Stitchnmomma’s shop in Etsy.
Cross Stitch with Art is a Ukraine-based Etsy shop with more than 1,000 patterns covering a wide range of subject matter, from sarcastic (and stabby) animals to jokes about mental health, tarot cards, holiday designs and a lot more.
The funny and adult humor section is by far the largest, with lots of snarky word art designs, often with a floral wreath thrown in for extra cuteness. There’s a bit of swearing in here, too (as well as in other sections).
My favorite place because I love that there are enough of these sorts of patterns to warrant their own section, is the Chaotic Animal Society. I feel like this is a type of cross stitch pattern that I share often, but it is a bit of a trend right now, too.
This one is a racoon in its bathrobe drinking a coffee and reassuring us that nothing is under control. That’s pretty relatable. The design is 86 by 91 stitches and uses 9 colors. It comes out to a little less than 6.5 inches or 16.5 cm square on 14 count fabric.
There are also a ton of mental health quote patterns (here again with plenty of snark as you might imagine, but also some sweeter ones, too); Halloween, Christmas, Valentines and other holiday patterns; nature patterns divided into animals and flowers and landscape designs; BookTok patterns and more.
There’s a nice collection of made up tarot cards including the antisocial butterfly, a reading dragon and a rainbow haired unicorn doing yoga. You’ll find feminist designs, Celtic knots and tree of life patterns, blank frames you can add your own sentiments to and a bunch of fonts to help you do just that.
Even though that covers a lot of the chaotic fun happening in this shop, there’s really a lot to see so you should head over to Cross Stitch with Art on Etsy and see it for yourself!
[Photo: Cross Stitch with Art]
I used to only use 14ct Aida, but then I stopped stitching for many years. Now I am trying to sort out what is what – If I am going to take the time to stitch, I want it to look nice, last a long time, and not look like I did a dot-to-dot, or color-by-number. I’d really like to use linen but it seems really expensive, and I don’t really know exactly what to look for.
When I first started stitching as a child/young adult I only used 14 ct Aida and kits. Then after I graduated from high school in 1985, I started using charts from Joann’s or the magazines, but still used Aida. Now that I’ve come back to stitching in the past few years and found evenweave I find that I love stitching 2 over 28ct on either Jobelan or Lugana as my favorites.
28 count linen (I especially like the slubby look of natural linens) and 32 ct jobelan and lugana are my favorites (I love the “feel” of these cotton/rayon hybrid evenweaves), but I’ll stitch on anything if it fits the project concept!
Like everyone else, I started my stitching “career” on AIDA but learned to love the flexibility the evenweaves give for things like half and quarter stitches, etc.
I really enjoy stitching on 36ct evenweave and linen. I’m currently stitching on a piece of 30ct hand-dyed linen and that’s pretty nice as well.
I stitch on a variety of fabric counts but I have to say one of my favorites is 28 count over one. I like Lugana or glenshee linen but my current favorite is the lambswool linen from Wichelt-Permin. Honestly, it depends on the chart!
14 for me! Haven’t done as much cross-stitch as I used to but my eyes aren’t getting any better. (I’m in my 60’s) 14 is fairly comfortable so I’ll stick with that & will try to do more cross-stitch!
Thanx for sharing a great experience.For a better result you may try Cross Stitch Fabric also.