Beginner’s Cross Stitch Guide

Let’s start your embroidery!

Start stitching from the middle. For that purpose, you need to find the center of canvas and the center of the layout or the embroidery. You will easily do that folding the canvas in half. Our patterns mark the center with black triangles all round the pattern.

Threading the needle

Seems pretty basic, but poses a challenge too often. Needle threader is a handy option, yet is not an ultimate solution for all the cases. When threading the needle keep flat the running end. Wet the strand and flat its tail.

Please note!
Separate each piece of thread into six single strands before using it.

Fastening off

In the case of a double-thread stitching: folding the thread of double length in half facilitates the job greatly. Make the first stitch and secure the thread sending the needle through the loop resulted from folding the thread.

The cross stitch seam

A cross stitch comprises two crossed stitches. When making this stitch observe that all the top stitches run into a single direction. Having secured the twice folded thread, pull it out on the front side; stitch from the left bottom corner to the top right corner. Complete the required number of stitches with a half cross stitch. Next, cover them with a half-cross stitch from the top left corner to the right bottom corner. The horizontal bands come from inside out. Make sure your needlework keeps the stitches inclined in the same direction. Otherwise, the same color differs in hues. Avoid long stretches (over 2 cm) as they may slack or tension the fabric, show through. Observe the thread tension ensuring its uniformity. Once the needlework completes or the thread is over, send the tail over the reverse side in a couple of stitches.

Inside out

We stick to the opinion that the reverse side shall be neat. The reverse should be perfect, if you embroider over gown or rushnik towel. Indeed, it is to be exposed. However, if you embroider a picture, it is all right to have some tails and short, for a couple of stitches, transitions.

Decorative seams

All the decorative seams should be embroidered in the end, after the cross stitch part has been completed.