Shall I Cross-Stitch You a Bookmark? Because I I Can Cross-Stitch Bookmarks Now!

These bookmarks are going into the kids' Valentine's Day care packages. Each one matches its recipient's school color!

Lit Stitch: 25 Cross-Stitch Patterns for Book Lovers by Book Riot
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The thing about cross-stitch that I’m still not sure about is its focus on decoration. I mostly sew, and any sewing book, even one confined to quilting, will always have a variety of projects, some decorative, but most useful in some way. You’ll get instructions for the odd wall hanging, sure, but you’ll also get pillow covers and zippered bags and pot holders and clothing items and everything else practical and impractical under the sun. So I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that a cross-stitch book seems to generally just show you the actual cross-stitch pattern, and it’s up to you to figure out what to do with it. I feel like you absolutely CAN do a ton of things with a finished cross-stitch, especially something like those pillow covers and zippered bags, maybe even ornaments and patches and embellishments, but it adds more mental work to the process, especially when all I want to do when I see a pattern I like is to literally just stitch it, not try to imagine what its actual purpose in my life will be.

So that’s part of the reason why I ended up stitching multiples of the BOOKS! bookmark pattern. For one thing, I really like the font. And for another, I know what to do with a bookmark!

I didn’t love the book’s instructions for finishing the bookmark, but tbh I didn’t love the way I decided to finish the bookmarks, either. The two bookmarks that I stitched onto Aida I backed with felt and blanket stitched with embroidery floss around the perimeter. The bookmark that I stitched onto burlap I backstitched to the felt and frayed the excess. Neither method looked as tidy as I wanted it to, especially compared to how precise cross-stitching looks to the eye. So if you’ve got a sure-fire, go-to way to finish a cross-stitch bookmark, please let me know!

Backed with felt and midway through its blanket-stitching. I feel like the knots are SO visible!

I loved the font used for the BOOKS! bookmark so much that I was super bummed to see that the book does not contain a complete alphabet in that font. I feel like every craft book that contains a word art project should have to also publish a full alphabet in that font, just in case you like it so much you want to make your own words with it… which in this case I did! Fortunately, with graph paper and plenty of erasing, I did figure out how to make the other letters I needed look like the BOOKS! font. The “A” is maybe a little wonky, but whatever.

Despite the wonky knots, I am so pleased with how this bookmark turned out! I drew F, I, and A patterns to match the font, calculated how to divide seven colors by five letters, and matched the rainbow in the blanket-stitching. I then mailed it to my niece in a box also containing two Eyewitness books and two size 6 T-shirts... and the USPS lost it. I'm waiting to hear from you, Mail Recovery Center!

After reading this book, here are the things that I now know how to do:
* Figure out how many strands of floss to use, within a limited range. I can definitely now eyeball when I need two strands vs. three strands, at least.
* Substitute colors. When I had the revelation that I did not have to purchase the exact color of DMC floss the pattern calls for if I have a similar color already in my stash, it BLEW MY MIND, lol.

Things that I still do not know how to do:
* Figure out what size the project will be. Should I count all the little squares on the pattern and then count all the little squares on my fabric? Measure the number of squares per inch and multiply?
* Finish a project. Do I bind the edges or anything? Glue them? Put it in a frame or something? The blanket stitching that I used to finish two of my bookmarks was particularly irritating to me, since I couldn’t find an invisible, or even tidy-looking, way to knot the ends of the floss. So all my knots are basically either the biggest, most visible knots ever created… or already falling out. Sigh!

In related news, I both own more bookmarks than I’ll ever need in this lifetime and am obsessed with how quickly cross-stitch bookmarks stitch up and how cute they are. Raise your hand if you want me to cross-stitch you a bookmark, I guess!

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It Took Me Eight Months To Cross-Stitch Two Things, But I Think I've Got the Hang of It Now!

Creepy Cross-Stitch: 25 Spooky Projects to Haunt Your Halls by Lindsay Swearingen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I didn’t think that I wanted to learn how to cross-stitch, but apparently I just needed a gateway book. Because now that I’m two whole projects deep, I love it!

Although it did take me a while to get there… I actually checked this book out from the library early this year---like, pre-Valentine’s Day early--thinking it might be cute to do some of the projects and set them aside for Halloween decorating.

Yeah... no. I finished my first project from the book, a little ghost with a floral background, a couple of days before Halloween, and the process only really started to click in mid-October. But then I zipped through the finish, immediately started my second project, a Jack-o-lantern cauldron, and finished it a week later.

Here are the things I learned:

1. The x’s touch each other. With my first stitches, I put the x’s next to each other, but not, like, in the same holes, and I had to sit there and stare at them for a while, comparing back and forth with the illustration in the book, before I finally realized how you’re supposed to place them.
2. Counting is really, really, REALLY important, and also weirdly hard? My little ghostie is actually a huge mess, especially all those little flowers, because I absolutely could not figure out how to count all the little squares of dead space to the next flower. It took me forever to realize that the pattern has darker lines every five squares, which made the counting maybe 5% easier, but I still feel like I have to count the pattern squares about fourteen times, then the squares on the fabric about twelve times, then check back to the pattern to make sure it’s right, and then to the fabric again to make sure I wasn’t crazy the last time I counted. WHY IS IT SO HARD!!!!!
3. You don’t actually have to use the exact colors of embroidery floss that the pattern calls for. With the first project, I bought all the exact correct colors and it was fine, but for the second project, I was all, “Aha! I can use these two random oranges that I already own!” So I only had to buy the greys, and I consider that a huge win.
4. You ALSO don’t actually have to use the store-bought Aida that the pattern calls for. I HAAAAATE the feel of the black Aida I bought for the ghost (I also feel like it was stupid expensive, Michael’s!!!), although I’ve since learned that I could have soaked it in water to rinse away the sizing that was apparently making it so stiff. But anyway, I did my Jack-o-lantern cauldron on burlap, and I am obsessed with how it looks and feels. I might have to experiment with dyeing burlap, because a lot of the Creepy Cross Stitch projects definitely need to be stitched onto black.
5. I am maaaaaaaybe too myopic to excel at cross stitch. I keep having to peer over my glasses and hold the fabric about two inches from my face, although I’m definitely getting better at not having to do that for EVERY stitch--just the tricky ones!

Here are the things I still don’t know:

1. The embroidery hoop dented my Aida and made me afraid to keep using it, so I’ve just been sort of holding the fabric by hand. Are embroidery hoops a huge time-saver, and if so, how do you keep it from creasing your fabric?
2. How do you pull a strand of embroidery floss from the skein without tangling everything? Is there a specific end you pull? My numerous skeins of tangled floss would like to know.
3. I don’t understand how you’re supposed to figure out where to place your stitching on the fabric so that you’ve got enough room for it but you don’t waste a lot of fabric, either. I wasted a bunch of the black Aida by placing my little ghostie in the center, so now that I’ve cut it out I’ve got just a bunch of scrap Aida that’s only good for tiny projects, but I had to restart my Jack-o-lantern cauldron because I started it too close to the edge.

I absolutely want to make most of the projects in this book, but now that I’ve got two finished (that I need to figure out how to mount and display…), I’m going to take a little break from Halloween stitching and check out some other cross-stitch books from the library. So far I’ve got waiting on hold for me one with national park icons, a feminist one, a literary one, and a Star Trek one. I think I’m going to be spoiled for choice!

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