Cross Stitch Design

Materials for cross stitch design

If you’re making your first cross stitch design, you’ll probably want to start from a photograph, drawing, tracing (say of a fall leaf from your yard) or some other object in front of you. This makes it easier to see the shape, color and dimensions of the item you are wanting to stitch. As you become more skilled you may not need to have something in front of you before you start, especially if you are trained as an artist.

Other materials needed include graph paper, pencils, straight edges, curves, etc., depending on what you are drawing and how comfortable you are working free hand. You don’t really need any other materials to get started.

If you've decided you want a photograph as your foundation for your design, you may find some very helpful tips, resources, step by step guides and examples at the website, Layden With Stitches. A web site devoted to showing you how to convert a photograph to a pattern. http://laydenwithstitches.4t.com

Choosing an object for your cross stitch design

You can turn anything into a cross stitch design, from a picture of your granddaughter to an abstract image in your head, a drawing of the sunset to a four-leaf clover pressed in a book.

When you’re first starting out doing cross stitch design, you might want to start with something simple. That means something relatively small, without a lot of corners or color changes. The more streamlined your object the better because it will be easier to chart.

Beginning your cross stitch design

Let’s say for the sake of illustration that you want to make a design out of a child’s handprint. The same basic steps can be used to make anything into a cross stitch pattern, but for the sake of simplicity we’ll work with a hand.

First you will want a tracing of the hand, which can be done directly on to a piece of graph paper or traced onto something else and cut out as a template to be transferred to the graph paper.

As you situate the hand on the graph paper, try to fill up as many whole squares as you can. Don’t just haphazardly throw the handprint down on the paper and trace it wherever it falls. You’ll want to use this paper to make your chart, so it should start off with the hand straight on the paper. Of course every square won’t be perfectly filled, but do the best you can to make sure it’s straight and the palm part starts at the beginning of a square.

Converting your drawing to cross stitch

Graph paper looks a lot like a cross stitch chart. Each square that’s covered up by your drawing represents a stitch on your cross stitch pattern (assuming you want your finished piece to turn out the same size as your drawing).

Where you have squares that are not completely within the lines of your pattern, you can either stitch a whole stitch anyway or stitch a half stitch on the fabric. It’s really up to you how smooth and even you want the edges to look. Experiment with doing it both ways and see which you like better. Of course if there’s supposed to be space between two items (like between two fingers) and using whole stitches would close up that space, do what you have to do to make it look right.

You can either actually draw x marks where you want your stitches to go or simply color in the squares to represent the color you would like to use.

Adding color to your cross stitch design

At this point you will want to consider what color or colors you want to use in your project. This is another reason having a picture or drawing of the object can be helpful; you can simply use colors similar to those that the object actually is.

But part of the fun of designing your own cross stitch patterns is that you aren’t tied down to what anyone else thinks the picture is supposed to look like. If you’re a fan of realism you can carefully color in every block, changing colors to denote shading or the play of light. Or you can get out the big box of crayons and go to town with whatever color you want.

If you aren’t sure how certain colors are going to play together in your piece, make several photocopies of the original graph paper drawing and try out all of your ideas. If you’re stuck for inspiration on color, go to you local craft store and browse through all the different colors of thread that are available. Buy a couple that seem right, and use those choices to guide your other color decisions.

Color theory in a nutshell

This isn’t the place for a full-fledged discussion of color theory, but you should be aware as you are designing your cross stitch patterns that certain colors play together better than others.

For instance, complementary colors, those opposite each other on the color wheel, look good together (red and green, for instance, or blue and orange). Analogous colors, which are the colors that are beside each other on the wheel, also provide a pleasing feast for the eyes (consider a palate including purple, blue-purple and red-purple).

Another good way to pick colors that look nice together is by considering a color’s value. Some colors are dark, some are light, some are pastel, some are bright. it’s good to stay within the same value family to produce a harmonious piece, or the color that isn’t within that family will really jump out (not always a bad thing).

Choosing thread for your cross stitch design

Once you’ve chosen the colors you like and have the pattern drawn out, visit the craft store and pick out colors that most closely match those colors you had in mind. Or allow the threads on sale to inspire you to think about your design in a different way. You might have seen something in your mind’s eye as being light blue, but when you see the gorgeous lavender thread available at the store be prepared to rethink your plans.

Most of all, have fun working with color and your design. The more you do it the more you will learn and the easier the whole process will become.

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