Your First Stitches: Part 1

You can totally do this!

Cross-stitch is really easy to pick-up, and I’ll walk you through everything you need to know to get started on your kit.

Look.

Have a look at your thread card (if you have one of our kits) and pull off the colour of strand you’d like to start with. While this looks like 1 thread, it’s actually made up of 6 individual strands.

Separate.

We’re going to use 2 strands for our stitches (this is pretty standard, but can vary). But wait! Before you start separating 2 strands, I’m going to show you an easy trick.

Slowly pull one strand apart, allowing it to twist so it doesn’t become tangled. Use an obect to anchor the strand if you need!

Let’s talk Aida (ay-da).

Aida is the cloth or fabric used in cross-stitch. I’ll make an ‘Aida’ post and put the link here.

Loop.

Once you’ve separated a strand, fold it in half so you have a loop on one end and 2 ‘tails’ on the other. This is called a loop start.

Time to thread your needle! Try threading the needle with the looped end if it’s easier than the tails.

Think of aida as a grid - each hole is a corner of an ‘x’.

You don’t necessarily have to do your stitches in this direction, though you will want all your stitches to be the same. Find something that works and stick with it!

Coming up through what will be the top left corner, thread your needle one hole down and one hole to the right from where you came up, to make a line like a backwards slash (\).

This is where the magic happens - don’t pull it all the way through! Get your needle and about half your thread through to the backside.

Thread your needle through and pull!

You’re on a roll! Let’s keep going in Part 2.