How to cross stitch, the beginning: tips for beginners

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:35

Modern children are increasingly absorbed in technological progress, now they are interested in gadgets, computer games and cartoons. And very rarely you can hear from a girl: "Mom, I want to learn how to cross-stitch!" Where to start, so that interest is not lost? It all depends on the age of the child and the sewing skills he already has. If he already knows how to use a needle, you can safely start embroidering, but in the absence of these skills, you need to start from the very basics.

Materials and tools

To get started, you will need:

• Hoop. They vary in material and form. The most common are round plastic and wooden. The former are comfortable due to their smoothness, they do not deform the fabric and embroidery when moving, but do not hold the fabric particularly firmly. The latter retain the tension of the material better, but at the same time they can deform it, especially if they have burrs orroughness. size is better to choose medium. Small ones will be inconvenient to use with further development of skills, and large ones are uncomfortable for beginners. It is necessary to start cross-stitching, as well as another type of this applied art, using the most comfortable materials and tools, so as not to discourage the child from learning just because he is uncomfortable.
• Canvas. You can use absolutely any materials. However, to begin with, as practice has shown, it is more convenient to embroider with a cross on 3 types of materials: laid on canvas + base, dense canvas or waffle canvas. The most comfortable and popular of them is the second material, which is suitable for embroidering pictures. If the embroidery needs to be placed on clothes or a pillow, then the first option is used here, and you can use both the classic canvas, which must then be unraveled manually, and the more modern water-soluble one.
• Needle. It should be thin enough, but have a big eye.
• Scissors.
• Floss threads. It is better to choose natural ones, the composition of which is 100% cotton, mercerized floss thread fits especially well. In addition, it has a smooth structure and increased strength, which avoids thread delamination or breakage. Pictures embroidered with woolen threads look interesting, they turn out to be very dense and fluffy, so this material is usually used to depict animals.

If the child is still small and does not have sewing skills, then you can safely take a plastic canvas with largecells, a plastic needle for knitted jersey and bright threads for knitting. With the use of these materials, you can not only teach to start cross stitching, but also analyze in detail different types of seams, easily unravel unnecessary lines, and most importantly, it is almost impossible to get hurt with a plastic needle, so you can use it from the age of two.

Steps

Like any other work, the cross stitch process can be divided into several stages:

1. Select pattern.
2. Forming the foundation.
3. Getting started.
4. Embroidery.
5. Finishing.

If the question was "how to cross stitch", the work has already begun. The main thing is not to delay the process and start it as soon as possible.

Choosing pattern

Even if this is the first experience, and the child has never held a needle in his hands before, the drawing must be chosen. Light, small, but it should interest the little master so much that he wants to embroider it. These can be diagrams from the Internet, a magazine, drawn by cells by hand, or you can also use your favorite mosaic diagram.

If a child of school age, then here, in order for him to start cross-stitching, as practice has shown, ready-made embroidery kits with a tinted base are great. It is very easy to embroider on such a canvas, there is no need to count the number of crosses according to the scheme and guess their correct location.

Shaping the foundation

In order to make it easier to work, it is necessary to fix the material correctly in the hoop. This is done in 3 steps. It is necessary to impose a canvas on the inner hoop, level it over the entire area, put on the outer hoop on top. Tighten it a little to fix it, but the material could be corrected. Stretch the canvas as tightly as possible, while making sure that the cage does not deform. Finally fix the outer hoop.

Getting Started

Since it is quite difficult to start cross stitching without knots, it is better to carry out the first steps of this type of creativity by fixing the end of the thread with a knot. This will greatly facilitate the work, but the wrong side will not look very neat. Ideally, the work should be without knots, and the tails are hidden. There are many ways, the simplest of which is fastening with a loop or under the stitches. In the first method, the thread, folded in half, is threaded into the needle so that a loop remains at the end, then the first stitch is made, after which the needle is threaded through the loop, and the thread is tightened. Thus, the thread is fixed on the warp without knots.

The disadvantage of this technique is that the needle may slip off the thread during operation. With the second option, this problem does not arise, since both ends of the thread are fixed under the first stitches or stitches of the previous row/color. To do this, a long stitch (1.5-2 cm) is made at the level of the first row or threaded under the previous one. Thus, the horizontal endis fixed with vertical stitches on the wrong side. If the work is two-sided, for example, a flat Christmas toy on a plastic canvas, then the beginning is fixed in the first way, and the end - in the second, on the front side (hidden under the crosses).

Cross stitch

Where do they start cross stitching? From the lower left corner. After the end of the thread is secured, it is necessary to make the first layer of stitches. You need to move from left to right, inserting the needle from bottom to top to the end of a row or element of the same color. Thus, a series of columns inclined to the left is formed. From the wrong side, they should be even. Then, in the same row, you need to return to the beginning, repeating the movement of the needle from the bottom up. In this case, columns are formed that are already inclined to the right, which forms a cross.

It is very important to thread the needle through the same holes so that the cross comes into contact with the tops of the neighboring ones. In addition, the product will be neater if you follow the sequence of actions so that the upper column of all crosses in the work is tilted to one side. On the wrong side, all columns should be perpendicular to the bottom of the product, diagonal movements are allowed, which are formed when embroidering rounded shapes, but they can also be avoided by passing the thread not diagonally, but parallel to the rows.

Shutting down

When the whole pattern is embroidered, it is necessary to hide all the tails, too long - cut off, after which the work can be removed from the hoop, washed if necessary (butundesirable), cut off excess edges and decorate with a frame or in any other way.

It is best for mom to learn in advance herself and periodically maintain her skills so that the child's question: "I want to cross-stitch, where to start?" no longer caused confusion and panic.