CAUSTIC CROSS STITCH

You will remember my name

Here’s a tutorial for finishing a cross stitch in a hoop. Of course there’s a few different ways, but this is a method I use regularly which can be customized to suit the stitching. I’m hooping ‘Florence the Owl’ and I’ve chosen hot pink felt and bright green ribbon to match her. I’ll stitch the felt backing on with turquoise thread. If your hoop is a bit ropey you could wrap it with ribbon or tape.

As well as your FO and a hoop, you need felt and ribbon, and cardboard of the same colour as your cross stitch fabric. Toy stuffing as well, but it’s not essential.

Firstly, make a circle of felt and a circle of card the same size as the outside edge of the inner hoop. Trace around the hoop in pencil to make a line to cut.

Give your stitching an iron on the reverse side to remove creases and plump up the stitches a little. It helps to be neat like this, especially with evenweave, so that loose thread and trailing ends don’t show though to the front. Trim all the little ends of thread left here and there and press flat with the iron.

Now put your stitching in the hoop. 1 The cardboard circle is going to sit on top of the inner ring and go under the fabric. This does a few things. It will help provide a bright background and so your stitching will look great! The grid holes in the fabric won’t be as noticeable. My stitching here is on evenweave - I’m going to use stuffing inside the hoop and the cardboard will stop it fluffing out the front. And the cardboard will also help protect from accidental impact damage.

2 When you’re happy with the position of the fabric do up the fastener as tight as you can, pulling the fabric flat all around the edges as you do the fastener up a little more each time The gridlines of the fabric should remain straight. 

3 Now trim the fabric all around the hoop to make it a circle. It’s easier to round the corners off first, and then trim down from there.

4 Fold the fabric down neatly at the back. Start at the top and make folds the same direction all around. This way your backing fabric will lay nice and flat. Fix the fabric in place with some running stitches made where the creases lay. 

5 I did two rows with this one as the evenweave wasn’t laying as flat as I liked. You could trim your fabric more than I did at stage 3 so there’s less to stitch. 

6 Poke some toy stuffing under the fabric and push it right up inside all around. This optional extra protection makes the back feel solidly squishy.

7 Now fix the felt circle onto the back by stitching it onto the evenweave fabric. I’ve used a simple blanket stitch. Make straight stitches from the edge inwards, pick up the last stitch and pull it flat. Blanket stitch will give some protection to the edge of the felt and looks lovely. But you could be more creative if you like!

8 This thread is a colour in the pattern. For blanket stitch, use a piece of thread as long as three times the circumference of your hoop. Use all six strands, much easier than separating it! The stitches are about 1cm apart here.

9 Tie the two ends together in a tight knot and tuck that knot into the fabric with the thread in the needle. Trim the ends where they poke out, if you need to.

Finish with a bit of ribbon at the fastener to hang the hoop. Double over one length of ribbon with one twist. Knot it at the end and loop through the fastener with the knot at the back and a flat loop ready for hanging.

(The photos for this one came out a bit rubbish so here’s a similar FO ^^)