Cross Stitch Tips - Make Your Own Design

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Make Your Own Cross Stitch Design

If you like to draw then you can create your very own cross stitch designs. All you need is some graph paper, pencils, colored pencils, DMC color card,Kreinik Color Chart, and a Mill Hill Bead color chart.  

Draw your picture on your graph paper with pencil so you can easily erase mistakes.  The larger the picture you draw, the more detailed it will be and the more colors you can use.  You can stitch the picture on any count fabric that you want.  The larger the fabric count, the smaller the picture will be once stitched. 

Color your picture in carefully with your colored pencils.  Consider which side of your picture the sun is on, and shade your picture accordingly.  When blending colors together, it is important to use tweeding.  That is the blending of two or more colors of floss.

Finally, you need to decide which floss colors you will use for your design.  This is where the DMC color card and Kreinik color chart come in handy.   They have samples of all of the different colors that Kreinik and DMC have available.   Use the Kreiniks for things like wings on fairies and angles, or edging on dresses.  Beads are great for things like flowers and berries on your picture or buttons. 

Chose different symbols for the different colors of floss and beads to put on your graph to finish your chart.  Don't forget to use outlining for different areas of your design, like to accent the facial features of your design.  Now you are ready to stitch your own design and see how it comes out.  Click here for some basic cross stitch instructions.