Basic (beginner) Cross Stitch

I've been wanting to posts like this for a very long time. Years, actually.

I haven't done any cross stitch for a few years. I'm switched to hand embroidery, I feel you can be a little freer. And with the design already on the fabric is a lot neater, meaning not as much of a cluster of supplies as cross stitch. But in reality, it's just as much materials minus the paper chart. But now I'm just rambling.

On the the stitches!

 Materials include:

Aida cloth
a small sturdy wooden embroidery hoop
blunt embroidery needle
small pair of sharp scissors
thread of different colors

Start off with the cloth nice and smug in the hoop. This helps keep the cloth taunt thus making it easy for the needle to enter the tiny holes.
Start on the back side, poking the needle up from underneath. Pull the floss all the way through, but making sure that you have enough of a tail to secure it so it don't pull completely through while stitching.

The holes in the cloth create square boxes, these are the boxes that you make in the same size X on.

Then poke the needle through the next hole that is diagonal to the first hole, creating parallel short lines. It's important to remember to not tug hard on you floss or you will create uneven stitches.

 Now to make sure that your floss doesn't pull out while you make your stitches, hold some excess floss (the tail), and when stitching make sure that you stitch over the tail, like so above.

 To complete a proper cross stitch, poke the floss up through the hole directly above the last hole you poked the needle through. Then cross it over the the opposite hole parallel, pushing the needle through to the underside.

 If doing a large block of color (several lines next to each other) do that area in that color like this.

 When you are done with that block of color, the back of you work should look like this. It's kind of important that the back of your work is smooth so when you go to mount and frame your work it's nice and flat and not lumpy.

 To finish off the row of stitches, poke you needle behind the back side row of floss to anchor it. Make sure that the floss is not visible on the front side, you don't want to poke through the cloth.

And once your floss is through the row, cut off the excess floss, neatly.

Here is a photo of what the back side would look like with other color added. It's nice and neat so when I go to finish it in a frame it will be nice and smooth.

I hope that these steps were easy to follow. I  also hope to do more tutorials like this in the future.

My Tools of the Trade

These are my favorite tools that I pretty much use every day.

 I make a lot different things, I like to mix it up so I don't get burnt out on something.

I quit kidding myself and stopped buying the little bottles of craft glue.

 I love my hot iron transfer pencil, it's mainly used for transferring embroidery patterns on to fabric via hot iron (duh). 

I measure a lot of stuff so I use a basic pen to mark everything and when I make patterns, I write on them to label the sides, the front, etc.

I have an entire old school lunch box full of different colored sharpies. They work great on making patterns on felt.

And for some reason, I forgot to include a regular pencil.

I believe I have over 8 pairs of scissors. I use each pair for different things. Pictured, I have pinking shears, fabric scissors, paper scissors, and an awesome folding pair for traveling.

I don't like to use the fabric pair for paper, I've read conflicting articles on you should/shouldn't use them for multi-use. They may or may not become dull faster. But I do know that the pair I use for paper do not cut fabric at all.

 

 My main passion is embroidery. I use many different hoop styles and sizes. 

I tend to keep my embroidery floss wound on bobbins and my cross stitch floss still in the bands in labeled plastic baggies. I have way too many skeins of floss to wind them all.

 Last but most certainly not least, my sewing supplies!

I can not live without my seam ripper. We have a love hate relationship.

I use my tailor's chalk a lot! It's easy to use and it just dusts right off.

I have actually gone through several measuring tapes.

That is only one of my six (yes, six) pin cushions/pins (there is a needle and thread on it).

And I really think that a hem gauge is very useful. It has saved me many times.

There are other tools that I do use but only one in a while. These are just the ones that get used daily.

It Came From the Floss Box!

This post continues my floss storage stuff.

 In the last post I mentioned that I keep all of my embroidering floss on bobbins.

I recently went through all of them and reorganized them, now I have two boxes! Oy!

 

I often have small projects so I don't want to lug around EVERY color I posses.

So one of to the newest thing that I like to use for my small projects that only require a couple of colors are these:

They are called Really Useful Boxes.

I got these for $1.00. They had a bin at Office Max for a whole bunch of sizes of these.

I just may have to get more, they stack really nice. And more importantly, they clamp closed so I can keep them on my desk and not worry about the cat getting into it.

The Wonderful World of Floss!

I love colors! Even though I'm a goth at heart, I do love me some pretty rainbows. Hey, I can't be gloomy 100% of the time. Well, maybe 80% of the time.  :) er, I mean, :(

Speaking of colorful things, I love to sit and just look at my rainbow of embroidery floss. Yeah, yeah, I know I'm a winner.

So here comes my question, How do you store your floss?

I have all of my cross stitch floss in a plastic bag and ring system.

And I have all my embroidery floss on bobbins.

I'm not entirely sure why I keep them seperate. 

But I think it might be the fact that winding the thread is a pain in the ass.

And I have an unwanted helper. But I keep her cause she's cute :)

I have more to talk about regrading floss but I feel that that needs it's own post.

RAINBOW!

Gloomy Fall Days

The days have been kinda gloomy and blah lately. But of course when I decided the night before that I was going to post this, it was gloomy.
But today is very sunny and so bright that I had to turn my monitor away just to see it.

I bought some brightly colored felt the other day. I really love how the colors pop with they are together.
Usually when it's cold and dark and just plain blah out, I always break out the bright happy colors. I do that at work a lot. Someone will ask, "Why is there a brightly colored ice cream cone on this cake? It's November." And I'm like, "SO? Wouldn't you eat it?" The other person, "Yeah, you're right, I would."

Surveying the stash!

I was "cleaning" out my containers of craft stuff, and by cleaning I mean making a big ol' mess. But I had fun doing it! I keep all my crafting stuff seperate from my cross stitch things. I guess I'm a snob about keeping it all nice and neat in one spot, as to where the rest are kinda throw into draws and what not.
So I will start off this post with an introduction of my work space. It is in the spare room along with all of the boys music/art/computer stuff. We call it our studio.
The table was made by my father, it folds up and portable. I love it. The black storage container is the home of all of my cross stitch stuff, well what I could fit that is. The white one is the home of all of my other crafty projects that i do. In the closet I have all of my misc. craft books and finished craft projects that I have up for sale on my shop. I try very hard to keep it clean.


And now on to the stash!!


This is all of my embroidery thread. I will NEVER wind thread on itty bitty bobbins AGAIN!! It took for-freaking-ever!



A lot (I'm afraid to count it) of my cross stitch floss, I use only DMC. The plastic bags system works just fine for me. A little while ago I printed out a DMC Shopper's list, that has all of their thread (numbers), it helps out big time, I know what I have without going through all my bags.


A crap load of my books and charts


That's a lot of hoops! And loads of fabric!!
A lot of this stuff was given to me by a friend that I use to work with. She just gave to me, I was more then happy to accept it!

I also have a lot of magazines, but i found that the British ones have more cute and whimsical charts in them, so I have a lot of those, but they are a little pricy. Ya know, being from over seas and all :)