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Crochet, Knitting, Embroidery & Needlework

MAKING NEEDLEWORK & CROSS STITCH PATTERNS

Are you bored with the conventional stitching kits, or do you hate to count threads for cross-stitch? Try printing your own designs! You can use your own original artwork, use clip-art from your graphics program (or other copyright-free clipart), or even do embroidery, cross-stitch or crewel work from a photograph. Make a framed wall hanging, a pillow cover, a T-shirt
applique, bookmarks, Christmas decorations, photo album covers, or special  personalized gifts.

Materials needed: Use a lightweight natural-fiber fabric, mounted to freezer paper, or you can print on the special stiffened "Aida" cross-stitch fabric, available in fabric stores & craft stores.

Directions: There are two basic approaches to printing cross-stitch patterns.

1. Print stitch patterns (where each stitch is marked with an X or a square, for instance) onto a finely-woven plain fabric. In this case, the printed design guides your stitch locations and colors.
2. Print an image or design (without individually marked stitches) onto Aida counted cross-stitch fabric. The fabric grid locates your stitches, and you select a floss color based on the closest match to the color on that part of the fabric.

For the first technique, mount your fabric to freezer paper. Finely woven light colored natural fibers work best, although nubby natural-colored linen and muslin also make nice backgrounds. You can draw your pattern and scan it in, scan patterns from books (even coloring books), or create your own pattern from a graphics program or clipart. Software is available for
generating cross-stitch patterns; try searching for Shareware on the net if you can't find it at computer stores.  Use the software to print cross-stitch pattern onto the paper-backed fabric. Peel off the paper, and stitch the design just as you would with the 'normal' pre-printed cross-stitch
kits.

Some photos or other bit-map digital images can be converted to a pattern by resampling (or rescanning) and printing at a very low resolution, such as 16-color 10 pixels per inch, if you have the software to support this.

Printing on Aida cross-stitch fabric is really easy!  First, make sure you have the stiff starched type of fabric, and not the soft floppy type.  Trim it to 8.5"x 11" or 8.5"x 14", and iron it flat. It should be just about as crisp and stiff as a piece of paper; you should be able to hold it
horizontally by one side (like you were reading a letter) without the other side drooping. If it is too floppy, iron on some spray starch. Trim any loose threads.  You can now feed this fabric directly into your printer, one sheet at a time, without needing a paper backing.

For designs on Aida fabric, just about anything will work! Graphics with solid colors work best, preferably shapes without too much fine detail.  Print the design first, then take it with you to pick out floss colors (unless you already have every color in the rainbow). Keep in mind you can
cross-stitch over just part of the pattern (for instance, the border) and leave the rest exposed as a printed image (for instance, your baby's photo). This combination looks really nice, but remember it will not be washable.

Photos can also be printed and used for stitching guides, though it can be tricky picking the right colors for floss on each stitch. Landscapes and still life photos look a lot better than people's faces when stitched over, since there is more room for creative expression.
 
 

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