Stitching Sunday: Cross stitch love

This week I finished my very first cross stitch project

Golly, how much did I love the thread organiser? Where have you been all my life, you lovely hole-punched card?

You may remember that I bought this lovely little kit at The Knitting & Stitching Show, and I started working on it with the help of my lovely friend. I’m happy to report that I really enjoyed cross stitching, the repetitive nature of the stitches was rather relaxing. And figuring out what colours to stitch where wasn’t as tricky as I thought.

Here is a close-up of my work – I’m going to need some advice for certain tricky areas. Some crosses – like the sandy one on the far right – weren’t centered, like something made the thread bend up a bit. What’s up with that?

And different shades of floss behaved differently. The deep red colour seemed quite thin – I’d like my ‘x’ to fill the fabric more, I really don’t care for lots of space around the stitch – while the palest pink seemed so fluffy that the stitches tended to look a bit crowded and messy to me. But I always used two strands of floss, so not sure how to deal with this...

I also found it challenging to make a neat 'x' when all four corners were already occupied with other stitches. I think I need a coaching session...

But hey, onward and upward, as I really would like to do more cross stitch. Now that I finished my little test kit, I can justify buying this lovely book:

*sigh* It's just so pretty...I’ll tell you more about it once I try a pattern or two!

I know there are a gazillion ways to display cross stitch...trinket boxes and cushions and bags, oh my! But I was keen to get my first piece on my new little Wall of Stitching. Alas, the fabric was too narrow on the vertical sides to fit in the smallest hoop I had (I think it’s a 3-inch hoop), and just like last Sunday’s post, I had to figure out how to fit my work into the hoop.

This time I decided to fray the edges a bit and tack it onto some pretty French linen from a fat quarter purchased a while back. I repeated the simple linen ribbon bow to hide the screw.

Hmmm. Very granny-ish. But granny chic or granny ick? 

I hung it on the other end of the wall, given that both stitched pieces feature squares of fabric stitched onto a base fabric.

This might be just slightly on the wrong side of twee for my taste. I’m going to consider carefully what else goes on the wall. I think one of Delilah’s black silhouettes would balance it well. I also am mulling over something decidedly silly...

Please share your needle ‘n thread love below!

Chrissie x