6 Things To Do Before You Cross Stitch

You’ve just finished your last project, it been nicely washed and ironed, and maybe even framed. So with an eager smile on your face, you pull out your next pattern, itching to get your needle into a new project. That ladies and gentlemen is when the fun police step in. “Stop what you’re doing, you need to prepare first!”
&nsbp;
Thing is, they kind of have a point. No one wants to go through a checklist of boring tasks before getting into cross stitching, but those tasks are there for a reason. With a bit of quick planning (and we mean quick) you can avoid a whole host of problems in your next project. Today, we go over 6 steps that’ll help you get right into stitching.

Plan Your Project

This one seems a bit obvious, doesn’t it? Well, it is, but there are a few things people often forget about that are important to consider.
First up we’d ask the question, where should you start your cross stitch? Almost every pattern you get has a center point, and most people start there. Nothing wrong with that. But is it the best for your project? In our epic Pokemon cross stitch patterns we see people cutting up the massive project into quarters, meaning they instead start in a corner. Or maybe you’re unsure if you’ll have enough fabric, so you start on one edge. It’s really up to you, but just because people tend to start in the center, doesn’t mean you always should. After all, no one wants to discover 90% of the way through their project that they’re not going to have enough fabric to finish.

Secondly, we want to ask another often ignored question: which direction should cross stitches lie? This seems a little random at first, so let me explain. Most people learn cross stitch in a specific way, meaning the top stitch of your cross goes from bottom left to top right. But your eye naturally follows this. This means that if you have a point of interest in your top left or bottom right, people aren’t looking at it. It might be worth changing the direction to get a better finish.

How to cross stitch animated gif illustration

Buy Your Cross Stitch Materials

Next up, you need to buy your stuff. For most of us, you’ll have a bunch of fabric, threads, needles, and frames around you, so this is likely to be a small step, but it’s actually one of the most important.
If you use a lot of one color, specifically, more than one skein, in your project, have you thought about thread dye lot issues? It’s worth investing in all the colors you need before you start your project to ensure you’ve got the same tones throughout. We’d actually go one step further and suggest you buy cross stitch supplies online as there is a lower likelihood for dye lot issues (thanks to the way they store cross stitch threads).

DMC Thread Color 318 Old and New (Source: Facebook)

Cut and Secure the Edges of Your Fabric

Next we suggest fixing the edges of your fabric. For those that stitch on evenweave or cross stitch fabrics other than aida this is even more important as your fabric has a tendancy to fray. You can stop cross stitch fabric fraying in loads of ways like hand sewing, stitching, gluing or using specific products however a quick wiz of a sewing machine will keep your cross stitch living a lot longer.

Blanket Stitching Aida to Stop Fraying (Source: wikihow)

Wash Your Fabric

I’m firmly in the camp of those who think you need to wash your cross stitch however I’m actually going to suggest you wash it before you start too. There are two reasons for this. The first is simply a case of age. If you buy some fabric, how was it stored in the shop? How old is it? How dusty is it? By washing it before you start you avoid trapping any dust under your stitches that is really hard to get rid of once completed.
Secondly, your fabric can bleed. If you’re using dark fabric or even black aida bleeding is more likely. You can avoid the chances of this happening by buying a better brand of cross stitch aida, but its never guaranteed. Better safe than sorry.

Washing cross stitch (source: peacockandfig.com)

Grid Your Fabric

I’m not actually telling you to grid your cross stitch. But I do want you to ask yourself if you should. Small projects don’t need gridding, but the larger and larger you get, the more and more miscounting can be a serious problem. Gridding is one, really good, way of avoiding that.
There are lots of ways to grid your cross stitch, some of which are super quick, so its really not as bad of a job as it at first seems.

cross stitch grid lines in Easy Count Guideline by A satisfied spirit (source: asatisfiedspirit.com)

Wash Your Hands

Finally, we end with a simple one; wash your hands. Oils from your hands RUIN cross stitch. Wash them before you start, every time, and you’ll stitch yourself an heirloom.