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.
Lifted Spirit Patterns is a cross stitch Etsy shop based in Australia that specializes in vintage travel poster style cross stitch patterns, but has a lot of other fun stuff, too. Let’s check it out!
By far the biggest category of designs here is travel posters, including US states, cities around the world and some general country poster style cross stitch patterns. So as not to play favorites, I thought I’d share the Australia poster, which features Uluru. The palette of yellows, oranges and greens is a lot of fun, and in all it uses 13 colors.
The design is 117 by 158 stitches, which comes out to 8.4 by 11.3 inches, or 21.2 by 28.7 cm on 14 count fabric. You can of course make it smaller by using a higher count fabric if you like, but I think that’s a good size for a poster style design.
There are also quite a lot of cat and dog cross stitch patterns, with many different breeds shown and space for the dog or cat’s name at the bottom. Most of these are dogs but there are a handful of cats, too.
Another large category is Christian cross stitch, which includes bible quotes and prayers along with some images without words.
The decorative cross stitch section includes some funny designs, like a hippo playing the drums, as well as some animal faces, birds and a set of colorful mushroom hoops, to name a few.
Other sections include kids cross stitch, mom life, wedding patterns, quotes and poetry.
You’ll also find a great collection of cross stitch alphabets of all sorts. There are script fonts, a Disney inspired font, varsity block letters and letters that look like candy canes, ice cream and jelly beans, to name a few. There’s also a great collection of small cross stitch fonts, perfect for adding personalization to any cross stitch pattern.
Check out all their fun designs at Lifted Spirit Patterns.
[Photo: Lifted Spirit Patterns]
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.