Cross stitch guide
How to sign and date your cross stitch
Stitch your initials and the year small, in a lower corner, in a color close to the cloth or the design. Backstitch letters take the least room. If the front has no space, sign the spare cloth that will be folded behind the frame, or the back.
On this page 7 parts
Should you sign it?
It is your choice. Stitchers have put their name and the date on their work for centuries: samplers from the 1500s and 1600s carry both. A signature tells whoever owns the piece later who made it and when. If you would rather keep the front clean, sign somewhere that does not show.
Where a signature goes
- A lower corner of the design, most often the bottom right. Keep it inside the area that will show once the piece is framed.
- Within the design, tucked beside a main part of it, in one of its own colors.
- On the spare cloth outside the design. It is folded round the mounting board when the piece is framed, so the signature is there but out of sight.
- On the back or the frame: a small label sewn to a felt backing, a card fixed to the back of the frame, or the wooden hoop itself, signed in pen.
What to stitch
Initials and a year are enough, and take little room. A full name, or a small mark of your own, also works. The last two figures of the year are shorter still.
Keep it small and quiet, so it does not pull the eye from the design:
- Choose a thread a shade away from the cloth, or a color already in the design.
- Use the smallest letters you can read.
- On a very small piece a signature can crowd the design. Sign the back instead.
Backstitch letters or cross stitch letters
- Cross stitch letters (1) are built from whole crosses. In the Block alphabet of the text generator a capital is 5 stitches wide and 7 high, so two initials with a gap are 11 stitches wide. They read clearly and suit a bold design, but they need space.
- Backstitch letters (2) are drawn in lines from hole to hole, so a letter can be 2 stitches wide and 4 high. The same two initials are 5 stitches wide. It takes the least room. Backstitch shows the stitch.
On evenweave or linen there is a third way: work the signature over one thread while the design is over two. The letters come out half the size.
Fitting it to the space left
- Count the space. On the cloth, count the blocks free between the edge of the design and where the frame will cover, across and down.
- Chart the signature. Draw it on graph paper, or type your initials into the text generator for cross stitch letters. Count its width and height.
- Compare. Leave clear cloth all round it, so that it touches neither the design nor the edge of the frame. If it does not fit, use backstitch letters, drop the full name for initials, or shorten the year to two figures.
- Try it first. Work it once on a scrap of the same cloth to see the size and the color.
- Stitch it last, when the design is finished, and finish the thread ends flat on the back, without knots.
The picture at the top is a signature of two initials and two figures in backstitch: 12 blocks wide and 4 high.
Common mistakes
- Signing where the frame will cover it, unless hiding it is the plan.
- A color that shouts. Stay close to the cloth or to the design's own colors.
- Letters too big for the piece.
- Leaving it until the piece is framed. Sign before finishing.
Where to go next
How to cross stitch letters and words covers counting the width of letters and centering them. To chart initials in cross stitch, open the text generator. When the piece is signed, how to frame cross stitch is next.