Cross-Stitch / Embroidery

Dear users, dear authors,
What can you tell us about cross-stitch?
Thanks for the info.

Hi everyone!

I used to do a lot of cross-stitch embroidery and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I don’t have time for it anymore, since I’m almost always crocheting whenever I have a free moment.

Cross-stitch is a very simple way to create beautiful embroidery.
Even preschoolers can create little cross-stitch masterpieces (e.g., stitching a little house on canvas and then gluing it into a wooden curtain ring as a frame).
There are some really beautiful charted patterns available for purchase, and you can also easily create your own on graph paper or using one of the various—sometimes free—embroidery software programs.
I also used to enjoy embroidering directly onto children’s shirts, sweaters, etc. To do this, you stretch the fabric to be embroidered and the waste canvas tightly into an embroidery hoop, embroider through both layers (caution: don’t hit the threads of the waste canvas), and then carefully pull the threads of the waste canvas out at the end.

Ambitious embroiderers make sure that the back side also looks neat and orderly (with all stitches running in the same direction as much as possible).

I find cross-stitch embroidery totally relaxing (which is why I still have all my magazines, books, fabrics, and threads—and I treasure them dearly! Someday I’ll have time for it again!

Best regards, Nina

Here’s a picture of one of my projects:

The heart is about 25x25 cm, embroidered on fine count fabric, and hangs in a 50x50 cm frame above our fireplace.

So cross-stitch doesn’t have to be old-fashioned or look like something only grandmas do...

Hi, I have a store-bought wall hanging (Tree of Life?) on my living room wall that was hand-embroidered. The embroidery technique consists of small loops—they look like crocheted chain stitches. The material is a coarse cotton fabric embroidered with wool threads.
On the back, I can see that it’s 100% handmade.
I’d also like to embroider a similar wall hanging. Does anyone have experience with this?
Thank you very much.
Best regards
Serap

Hi Serap,

I don’t know the name of the embroidery technique right now, but I do know how to stitch it!
Hopefully you can follow the explanation:

(I don’t have any evenweave fabric on hand right now, so I’m just stitching with yarn on paper!)

(Small mistake in my pictures: the bottom two stitches—that is, pictures 1 and 2—should be stitched into the same hole! And then I also remembered the name: daisy stitch!)

Best regards, Nina

Hi Nina, thank you so much!
You’re a sweetheart ;-). You put a lot of work into the photos...
I think you need an embroidery hoop for every embroidery project. Your photo with the red embroidery is also great.
Very interesting, beautiful design!
Best regards
Serap

Hey Serap,

no, it was no trouble at all :)—I had everything ready to go, and it’s so quick to share pictures and such with my phone.
I embroider (or rather, I used to, unfortunately, because time is in short supply right now) almost exclusively without a hoop. I only used a hoop when I was embroidering on counted fabric or, for example, T-shirts.
It’s like crocheting… after a while, the stitches naturally become even… and I always like to guide the needle from front to back and back to front.

Best wishes and have a wonderful Sunday!

Nina

P.S.: Thanks for the kind words about my heart :)

Hi Nina,
I hope you have a wonderful Sunday too!
Thank you so much for your effort ;-).
Best regards
Serap