Tag backstitching

Turtle in clear keychain.

Turtle & cat on linen

CraftyK Leave a comment

I went to a local cross stitch store to get fabric for my next project (which turned into two) and came away with a sample of Jobelan and linen scraps to try out.

I think it was expected that I just make little x’s of nothingness, but I have so many patterns, I found a cute little turtle in a World of Cross Stitch magazine to blow up large enough to stitch. And mark off progress.

I decided to try the 40 count linen first as it came highly recommended (once you get used to it). Day one I put in 43 stitches and I’m not a fan.

Day two or three taking the project outside and using sunlight helped immensely. I could finally see the holes! Stitching went easier. Since I stitched using 1 thread, I finished up some backstitching when working on the eyes.

Turtle on brown linen minimal backstitching

Finishing, it paid off to stitch over 2. Which I decided to do because of the backstitching. It meant built in holes for all the backstitching landing in the middle of a square.

Part two of the sample pieces from the local cross stitch store. The cat is from the same issue of World of Cross Stitch magazine. Again, recharted in WinStitch. This time not only to make it bigger, but because the key is two pages away.

It paid off again to stitch over 2. There is backstitching in the middle of the square. This one I timed and it took 2.5 hours all in. I didn’t take a progress pic of the cat, it went from stitched to backstitched the same day to finish.

Stitching – Turtle

Started: August 8, 2025

Finished: August 12, 2025

Stitching time: didn’t track it

Turtle in clear keychain.

Stitching – Cat

Started: August 17, 2025

Finished: August 19, 2025

Stitching time: 2.5 hours

Light and dark grey spotted cat in clear keychain

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Puppy in a stocking Christmas card

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The pattern calls this on “Puppy”, I went a bit more descriptive. This card is part of the 1988 series of Christmas cards that seemingly no one made until recently. I received this one stitched, but not assembled last year from someone and then received a brand new unopened kit. It’s cute so I decided to go ahead and make it.

This one was a lot more detailed than I expected. It took around 10 hours to complete. I think around 7 of those were stitching, the remaining 3 hours was backstitching. I can’t believe it took so long!

Above is just the stitching, before the details were added.

Assembly was pretty easy since the aperture card came with the kit. Just needed double sided tape to hold everything together.

Stitching

Started: April 9th

Finished: April 30th

Stitching time: 10 hours

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Seasonal Goose

CraftyK Leave a comment

Where to start with this one. I completed the stitching so long ago I don’t remember much about it.

This pattern came with a tri-fold aperture card ready to use. I didn’t have to make any decisions on paper, colors, or final size.

While stitching did take a while it was very nice to have all whole stitches. French knots went pretty well too on this one. I don’t think any are loose. The photos below are of the stitching in progress. The one on the right is what the pattern looked like before any backstitching or knots were applied. Those two things really made a difference!

The card does have elements that most in the series of kits don’t have. There is embossing on the front and the inside left panel. The company also embossed their logo on the back. The other cards I’ve completed from this series didn’t have that much extra detail.

To get everything assembled I used a light interfacing fabric behind the design and double-sided tape to hold it all together.

Stitching

Started: November 8

Finished: March 28

Stitching time: 11.5 hours

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Happy Birthday text in focus

Teddy bear

CraftyK Leave a comment

Birthday twins in the family are becoming more common. Not just the actual twins, nope, these are the new people marrying in and having babies. There’s just under 60 people in the family and there are 365 days a year. We have at least 5 overlapping birthdays already of non-twins. That just seems so crazy to me!

Anyway, this card didn’t take too terribly long to stitch. I actually outlined the letters as I went since I wanted the thin parts to be thicker, so two threads across the board on that one.

The bear I wanted to show a before/after of the stitching vs stitching with backstitching .

teddy in progress

Here’s my wonderful cell phone photo of the bear before I got out the black thread for it. It’s always fun to see the before and after on these and the difference it makes.

side angle right

The assembly of the card didn’t go as I’d hoped. It was a bit like the Hippo I made earlier this year. The paper is the thinner I guess regular printer paper weight and doesn’t handle being cut and taped down over the fabric very well.

It seems to go ok until the bottom and I get a bubble that turns into a pronounced crease. Other than that I like how this card turned out.

Stitching

Started: July 16th
Finished: July 20th

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teddy card full front

top front, slight angle

Antique Storefront

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I think this is the most detailed and challenging card of the year. The pattern calls for 14 count fabric making the design 5″x5″. To keep to my “standard” card size of 4×5.5 I needed to make the design smaller, so I went with 22 count fabric. Making this already detailed pattern even more daunting. The pattern is from an old issue of The Cross Stitcher, I’m not sure if it can be found anymore, but that’s where to start the search. They had a whole Victorian Village Afghan Series.

thread laid out

I used my more “aged” fabric that is kind of loose in a way. I had a few times while stitching, mostly during backstitching where a whole row would just rip out. Like it wasn’t really in there at all.

This pattern has a lot of backstitching to it. So I decided for the first time in my cross stitching life to do some of the backstitching as I went. I even took a picture before I started in on the bottom half. I thought it would be fun to finally show a work in progress or WIP in the cross stitching world. (I learn so many new things from the Cross Stitch Club Facebook group)

part of backstitching done

Once I got all the detail work done. I attempted at double checking it. There was so much I just hoped for the best. I tried to take some semi-detailed pictures of the stitching top and bottom. Tried using a different camera with a macro lens and was a little frustrated by how far away I still needed to be from the design to focus.

For the frame I picked out a wallpaper that has some pattern to it, but still kind of plain. I really kept trying different plaid patterns, but they all seemed too busy. I really wanted the cross stitch to stand out since it is so detailed and took a lot of hours to get done.

front of card standing

To cut the frame I got out the Cricut and measured pretty darn well. There are times when I leave no breathing room, but this one wasn’t too bad. There was even enough space on the sides for the wallpaper to be taped to the cardstock.

Stitching

Started: June 1st
Finished: June 16th

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full front of card