I suddenly want to take up Cross Stitching!

[foolonthehill]

I know a few of you on here do it, so I was wondering do you all have some tips or tricks for a beginner? Also (not that I'm anywhere close to it yet) when you do your own pattern, and lets say there is a lot of empty space left on the canvas or linen or whatever, do you stitch white into that or do you just let it be

Comments

[dinnercakes]

Yep! I've done a lot of counted cross-stitch kits

[dinnercakes]

Oh and about the negative space, you just leave the natural cloth color showing. You certainly could fill it with white if you chose, but there's usually no need. Just try to keep your hands clean. No Cheetos while stitching. LOL.

[foolonthehill]

used your advice on doing one color at a time on my first kit today and so far its working great! Though I am finding it hard to find the X sometimes, though I think its just cause I made my stitching to big or something. For my first try its coming out okay heh

How long did it take you to go from stamped to counted (if you ever did stamped at all) and any advice for the day I try counted out?

[foolonthehill]

The one thing that I can't seem to wrap my head around is how does the thread keep from getting lose and falling out when you don't knot anything? I have never really done any type of sewing or needle stuff or anything so sorry if this is super basic XD

Thanks for the info! I can't wait to get a set tomorrow and get started :D I'm sure more questions will come up. I ahve a hard time when I am just reading and figuring things out on my own, I work better when I can ask questions and get tips on what to do

[riverdance]

I've been cross-stitching for years myseand have yet to do any rinsing

[foolonthehill]

Thank you for all the advice! Glad I could get you back into the art :D and yeah I noticed what you meant when I was standing in the cross stitch section that was half empty with patterns. I ended up finding three that didn't fall into the "Baby" or "Christmas" category so yay! Having a blast so far and thanks for the advice :D

And you were right! I tried taking a few of the stitchings out to fix them and those suckers were bolted in!

[taisiia]

I think you've seen some of mine. :)

Buy a simple kit, mess around with it, and go from there. You'll learn as you go. It's easy & you'll get better FAST.

I check Hoffmanis every month for their new releases. I have a crap-ton of designs on my wishlist but I"ll never have time to do them all.

1-2-3 Stitch is my go-to place for material & threads when I'm needing supplies. They have a great selection that gets better all the time AND they ship promptly.

[foolonthehill]

I love yours! I went to Hoffmains and started looking at other websites and already found a super cute moose one I want! I just wish I could find more info on it other than it appears to be counted and I'm not quite ready after a day of newbie set to go swimming in the big kids pool!

Thanks I plan on putting this post in memories so I can go back and look at these websites from time to time.

How hard is it to go from stamped baby steps to the counted stuff would you say? And whats the difference between this and needlepoint?

Thank you again!

[taisiia]

Don't even go stamped. Grab a simple counted & you'll see how easy it is.

[taisiia]

This was one of the kits that got me going:

http://www.123stitch.com/cgi-perl/itemdetail.pl?item=K013-0261

They're easy enough to start with, it's a kit so all the stuff is there, and the result is satisfying.