X Marks the Spot

In my December 2020 summary I mentioned that I bought cross stitch supplies to have something to do during winter that didn’t involve staring at a computer screen. I’d stumbled across the cross stitch subreddit some months ago and thought about getting into it more seriously than I had in the past but didn’t know if I’d be into it enough for it to be worth buying all the supplies. Then I figured I’d basically spent a year only paying rent and buying groceries, gave in, and bought all the supplies. Cross stitching may not be as useful as say, knitting, or woodworking, but it has its advantages. It’s reasonably compact and at the bare minimum, all you need is embroidery floss, fabric to stitch on, a needle, a pair of scissors, and a pattern. You can also buy hoops, frames, and stands to hold the fabric as you stitch; lights, headlamps, and magnifiers to see better; bobbins and cases to organize your floss; thread conditioner; needle minders; and lots of other gadgets, but you don’t absolutely need those things.

I had a pair of scissors from a Walgreens sewing kit, so I ordered floss, fabric, and a pack of needles online (thank you, 21st century). The site I ordered from (123Stitch) looks like it’s stuck in the early 2000s, but they offer fixed rate shipping in the US and fulfill orders quickly. The subreddit also has good things to say about their customer service, though I haven’t had reason to contact them. They ship using USPS, which despite mail volume or staffing delays, has delivered my packages within a week the two times I’ve ordered supplies.

To start out, I decided to try some free patterns from DMC, one of the big embroidery floss manufacturers. My first pattern in about six and a half years was carrots. It was a good project for getting back into cross stitch. Each individual carrot was a few hundred stitches and just four or five colors so they came together pretty quickly. There weren’t a lot of randomly scattered single stitches (confetti) or an excessive number of color changes. The only part that had to be counted a little more carefully was the carrot tops, but even there, unless you severely or frequently miscounted, no one would know if you were off a square once in a while. No half or quarter stitches, just full stitches and backstitch.

Carrots

After the carrots I moved on to a blue whale and a sea turtle. The blue whale used the least number of colors of thread (seven, I think), so had a large patch of a single blue across most of its body. The backstitch in this pattern was a little weird. They asked for the backstitching to be done with three strands (it’s common for backstitch to be one strand), and there were long runs and stitches that ended in the middle of edges or squares, which is fine, just unexpected for an otherwise straightforward beginner-ish project. There was also a French knot for the whale’s eye. I followed a YouTube video and made a knot. Whether it’s a French knot . . . or not . . . I don’t actually know.

Blue whale

The sea turtle was probably the most complicated pattern, and it’s not entirely done because I’m missing a color of floss that was sold out online. It’ll get done eventually. All three patterns are 4-6" in width/height and were stitched on 14-count Aida (the fabric with holes for cross stitching) with two strands of floss except for backstitching. The coverage I’m getting is satisfactory, though you can see gaps with some of the darker colors if you’re very close. I’m now five weeks into a full coverage 30,000-stitch pattern that I picked to keep me occupied for the rest of winter and I’m about a third of the way done, so you can start looking for the big reveal in May at the earliest.

Sea turtle