Cross stitch for all

As I briefly touched on in the intro, a total novice to the world of cross stitching wants to be starting off with a project that isn't complex and the best example of these is either a pre-printed sampler or a chart that uses only whole stitches (which is where children's kits come in useful).

If you choose to go down the pre-printed sampler route, you'll need to buy lots of different colored silks (Don't be afraid to try blended silks, which have more than one color in them at this stage either - it's perfect to test what these will look like in your work without having to worry a whole lot about it matching your other colors). to stitch it up with, a needle with a large eye (for ease of threading), a pair of scissors and a hoop if it's a large project. In this case, it doesn't matter where abouts on your project you start since it's already printed on your fabric, all you are doing is merely following what is in front of you.

If you have chosen to go down the route of stitching a chart that uses whole stitches, you'll need enough aida to stitch your design on (leaving a little around the edges for framing, should you want to), your chart and color key, the silks listed in the key, a needle with a large eye, a pair of scissors, a hoop if it's a large project, a highlighter pen to mark off the stitches that you have done, an iron and ironing board. To get started, simply fold your aida in half, then bring the top edge down to the bottom so that your aida is now in quarters. Run the iron over it at this point so that the creases are nice, crisp and easy to see.

Unfold the aida and place it in the hoop (if you bought one) so that the + you have just ironed in is smack in the centre of your hoop. Now look at your chart. You might see it's divided into 4 (There are 2 bold lines to mark this) in the same way as your aida is. If it is, you need to decide wether you are going to start working to the left or the right of the + (If you are right handed, you might prefer to work to the right side of the + first off, a left handed person might like to start on the left of it). Once you've decided, have a look what the symbol is directly at the side of the lines meeting and refer to your color key to find out which color you are starting with. Take this color and pull off about an arm's length from the skein, snip it off and thread your needle with either 1 or 2 strands (depending on how many the chart designer advises) and start stitching the squares that are marked with the symbol that matches this color. If you want the back of your project to look neat as well, consider stitching just one arm of the stitch until you have a whole block of half stitches (or you run out of silk on your needle - whichever comes first is fine) that look like this /////////////////// or this \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ then return back along the half stitches to bring up your full crosses. When you run low on silk, turn your work over and run your needle horizontally through the back of 3 or 4 stitches to secure the end before you cut off to re-thread.

If you chose a children's kit, you will already have the needle and threads you need to complete the design, you will however, still need a pair of scissors. As far as getting started goes, you'll either have it pre-printed or not so you'll be able to pick out how to get started from the 2 guides above

Backstitch is the stitch that every stitcher has nightmares about for the simple reason being that it can be time consuming and fiddly.

That said though, backstitch does add a nice emphasis on certain areas of your work and it can even be used to add some cool effects in there as well (Especially where similar color blocks are used to stitch 2 areas side-by-side). Although most backstitch is done in black, which is perfect for achieving that "hand-drawn" look, there will be times where you might want to achieve a different feel to your work... which is where the metallic threads can come in.

Simply swap the color of the backstitch for a metallic thread that fits into the colour scheme you've got going on the kit and stitch it in the way your chart tells you and you'll end up with a project that looks great and sparkles and shines too!!!

If you want a little more of a challenge, you could try to stitch up a counted cross stitch kit (try to avoid those with french knots and lots of fractional stitches if you are a new stitcher though - those pose a challenge of their own!!!). This is more difficult because it's not pre-stamped onto the fabric so you need to keep track of your place on the chart very carefully. The best way I've found of doing this is to mark off the stitches that I've done with a highlighter pen (that way, if you later think you might have made an error in your stitching, you can still see the stitches you have already stitched on your chart). If you don't want to mark your only copy of the chart, feel free to print another copy off on your computer. As long as you only intend to use it yourself and not share it in any way what-so-ever (including passing it along to the lady next door), you are okay to do that.

Now that you are working on a counted cross stitch project, I can't emphasise enough how important it is to Start in the center of your design and work your way out (Use the fold and iron tip above to find the centre of your aida/evenweave). Of course, this means that you need to start in the middle of your chart as well, but it is better to do this and know that your design will fit onto your aida or evenweave than you'll feel later if you have to unpick your work and start again or try to add a little extra aida or evenweave in a discreet way.

Each little square on your chart that has a symbol in it is a stitch. You need to stitch all of these up first. Once you have done all your whole and fractional stitches (if applicable), you should be left with the backstitch which looks like bold black lines (possibly on or around the edges of your chart). Now's the time to stitch your back stitch... Don't forget to stitch any lettering you might have or want to add!!!

Metallics are also good for adding that "something extra" to your counted cross stitch kits or charts. There's 1001 ways that you can make a plain, run-of-the-mill kit into a one-of-a-kind that no one else has. You could transfer the whole design into metallics, which is great for those designs such as Disney where the colors vary vastly between the different areas but could pose something of a problem where you are stitching fairies or flowers - but if you slyly substitute the very last row of stitches on the tips of the wings for gold or silver, your fairy looks like s/he is flying.

Flowers seem to have a "just watered look if you swap the color on the edge of the tips for a similar colored metallic thread.

If you are stitching an underwater scene, you can tranform it by giving the fish a few touches with metallics - even The Little Mermaid will look great with metallics running through her hair and tail.

Now, a pre-stamped chart is basically evenweave material that has already had the design stamped on it. I've done a few of these myself and what I like about them is the fact that they remove the need for counting your stitches as well as allowing you to really experiment with different types of silks which is perfect if you want to try out different effects over a small area but you are unsure as to wether the recipient of the work will like that particular effect.

To stitch a pre-stamped piece means that you are stitching over each cross on the fabric with colors of your choice. It can be a great way to use up left over bits of color from kits you've already completed, too. It's for these reasons alone that I think that everyone should always have at least 1 pre-stamped chart in their sewing box.

If you are looking to teach a child to stitch, pre-stamped charts could be a good way to achieve this. I was able to teach a man with zero sewing knowledge (seriously, he'd never sewn as much as a button) how to cross stitch using these pre-stamped charts and towards the end, he found the enjoyment for doing it

It's for the reasons above that I think that everyone should have at least one pre-stamped chart in their stitching stash.

No matter where you look online, the great knotting debate is always going to crop up amongst crosstitchers as they try to figure out the pro's and con's then try out each method themselves.

Personally, I knot the end of my silk because I can never seem to get the tail end to remain in place without knotting it no matter which method I use and I've tried several different methods over the years that I've been stitching. Of course, there are con's to this method in that if your knots are too big, they are easily felt from the other side of your work - which can be a bad thing if your work is designed to be laid against such as a throw for the back of the sofa.

However, if the work is simply made to go in a frame, I haven't encountered any issues with knotting as a result of this myself.