Cross Stitch

Cross stitch has been a hobby I’ve fallen in and out of love with since I was sixteen, but it all started with a tapestry kit purchased when I was on holiday in the USA.

Tapestry

My first venture was a tapestry kit of the Kansas City Jayhawk, the mascot for the local basketball team of 1985. These days the mascot is for all the Kansas City athletic teams associated with Kansas University.

I had been staying with friends in Kansas, who introduced me to the hobby and this was a big, bold, colourful project that caught my eye and reminded me of my trip. I was advised this would be an easy first project because it was full of larg blocks of colour.

Unlike cross stitch, the pattern for tapestry is painted directly onto the canvas, so very easy to follow

I’ve moved house a lot over the years, so sadly this tapestry has been lost.

Snoopy and Woodstock are my true heroes. I’ve adored them since I was tiny. So I couldn’t resist transforming this spoof image 1980s, Miami Vice, into a tapestry pattern.

I used to have a reflection board like this which helped me learn to draw. I used it to copy the image onto the canvas and then coloured it in using felt pen.

Again, I fear the cushion I then made with it has been lost.

Moving to cross stitch

I’m unsure how I moved to cross stitch. I think it was at University. I believe my friend Debs used to make small samplers and bookmarks and I liked the idea of something more intricate to work on.

Unlike Tapestry, cross stitch is counted. You uses two threads of embroidery cotton, start in the middle of the fabric and then count the stitches out, marking off progress on the pattern.

One Christmas, I picked up this Cross Stitch magazine and liked the idea of something more intricate. It felt more creative.

As a hard up student, my time was much easier to find than money, so I set about making one an evening as presents for friends and family.

The green highlighted card is the only one I know of that that still exists, in my brother’s loft in Australia.

Fabric

There are three types of fabrics for cross stitch.

Aida – this is great for beginners as it has a wide open weave, usually 14, 16 or 18 count. (You can get 6 stitch for children to learn on). The count refers to the number of stitches per inch).
Evenweave – this is my choice of fabric. It has a higher thread count, usually 25, 28 or 32. You stitch over two threads. As a result of hits higher thread count, you get a more refined appearance.
Linen – I’ve not used linen before. It has a similar thread count as evenweave though 40 and 50 count is available. It can have an inconsistent appearance and is much harder to stitch.

(See the Stitch Modern website for more information on fabric and stitches).

This kit, gifted by a friend, introduced me to evenweave and its been my fabric of choice ever since. I often replace the supplied aida for evenweave.

In the past all my creations had been on 14 aida. You could still holes in the fabric on areas that were not stitched. But with evenweave, the final result just looks so intricate.

This was a great starter to evenweave. The big bold patches of colour made it quite simple to follow as I got the hang of working on the different fabric, until working on the hedgehog itself, which needed more concentration as every other square was different in colour, and the two threads used for sewing were different colours.

Making templates

I bought and made this kit for a friend who lives in Bristol, where they have the annual balloon festival.

I liked it so much I made a copy of the pattern on tracing paper to overlay on graph paper so I could make it again.

My aunt is the only woman I know to gain both a bus and HGV lorry license.

She used to love Volvo lorries, so I found an image and designed this for her back in the late 80s.

It started life as a tapestry with the design painted onto the canvas. But from that I created the graph design, and this became a counted cross stitch on 14 aida.

Making memories

These two designs are a mix, both on 14 aida.

Cley Mill (Norfolk, UK) was designed from a birthday card from my grandparents. I recreated it as a cross stitch project, which I gave to them as a Christmas present. It was returned to me when they passed away.

The Mill holds special memories. Nearby Blackney was a regular Sunday afternoon outing for my grandparents. I remember being given the biggest ice-cream cone in my early life. It felt was as big as my head! When they passed away, we scattered their ashes on the marshes in view of the mill.

The lighthouse was a kit. The red and white of this lighthouse is synonymous of Happisburgh Lighthouse, near Bacton and Walcott beaches where we grandchildren used to play. The game of “who can see the lighthouse?” was a favourite with our granddad. I live in East Anglia now and still sing it when we visit. My husband even joins in!

My brother tells me I also made him a version.

Putting people to canvas

As illustrated above, my grandparents were a huge part of my younger life. So when my granddad passed away in 1997, I sent this photo off to a company, who translated it to graph paper.

It took me 10 years to make this. I think the memories were too fresh to work on it.

But I picked it up again in 2008 when my nan passed away.

As IT packages had become available to do this myself, I attempted to make a similar pattern of my nan. Easier said than done. Getting the sizing right was difficult and I realise now that you need great attention to detail to get depth and definition.

Sadly the end result doesn’t compare. Proof, you get what you pay for!

Foxy Lady!

My husband’s mother was a wonderfully eccentric lady, who loved her foxes. She had a family of them living near her home, whom she would feed.

She could often be heard slapping a hand away from her home-made jam tarts, declaring “they’re for the foxes!” It turns out the other animals didn’t like them, but the Foxes would stuff their mouths and take them back to their den.

So when this design popped up on my Facebook page, I had to have it.

Mary loved it and was very touched at the effort made for her. But it was a joy to sew. The colours were so vibrant. The leaves use one stitch, and much of it uses two different colour strands to make up the thread. And as usual, I swapped out the aida for evenweave.

Testament: Funny Badgers

Among my husband’s many talents, he is the author of Testament: Funny Badgers. He is also an excellent artist. All the illustrations in his weird and wonderful tales of Badgers at the end of his garden were created by him.

As a Christmas present, I transferred one of his images onto graph paper. He worked on the colour scheme to get the colours just right. And this is the end result. He was delighted.

World War tribute

Pre-pandemic, I would travel with a group of people from Norfolk to world war battlefields on the Somme to pay tribute to The Fallen of World War One, as detailed in my article Lest we Forget.

I have stood at the Menin Gate in Ypres, dressed in my CamSAR uniform, where I placed a cross of remembrance to honour two great-grandfathers who fought in the Great War.

My great-grandad, James Henry Smithdale, fought and died at Arras and is remembered on the Arras Memorial wall.

My great-grandmother remarried Walter Brookes, who fought at Ypres and survived. He would return each year to honour the fallen, including visits to Arras to remember James.

This kit was gifted to me and I felt closer to my grandfathers with every stitch. Sadly post-pandemic, the trips have had to end. But I have this project to remind me.