Cross stitch guide
What is cross stitch?
Cross stitch is embroidery made of small X-shaped stitches, counted from a chart onto a cloth with an even weave. Each X is one square of the chart, and the Xs together make the picture.
On this page 7 parts
What cross stitch is
Cross stitch is one stitch, repeated. Two short diagonal stitches cross to make an X, and hundreds of Xs side by side make a picture, the way squares of color make a mosaic.
Three things make it work:
- The cloth has an even weave. Most people stitch on Aida, a cotton cloth woven in small squares with a hole at each corner. The needle goes up and down through those holes, so every X comes out the same size. The count of the cloth is the number of squares to the inch: 14 count has 14.
- The design is a chart. A chart is a grid. Each square that holds a symbol is one X, and each kind of symbol is one color of thread. A key beside the chart says which thread each symbol stands for.
- The thread is six-strand cotton floss. You pull the strands apart and stitch with a few of them, usually two on 14 count.
You count squares on the chart, count the same squares on the cloth, and make an X there. That is the whole method. How to cross stitch teaches the stitch itself.
Counted cross stitch and stamped cross stitch
What is described above is counted cross stitch: the cloth is blank and you count from a chart. In stamped cross stitch the design is printed on the cloth, and you stitch over the printed marks with nothing to count. The two are compared in Stamped vs counted cross stitch. Every cross stitch pattern on this site is a counted chart.
The chart on the left and the stitches on the right are one design, square for square. It is the small red heart with a dark outline, one of the patterns here.
Where it sits among other embroidery
Cross stitch is one kind of counted-thread embroidery: needlework in which each stitch is placed by counting the threads of the cloth. Blackwork belongs to the same family. The other big family is free, or surface, embroidery, where the stitches follow a drawn design and take no notice of the weave. Needlepoint, which is worked on canvas, is a close relative of cross stitch.
Two guides compare the crafts side by side: Embroidery and cross stitch compared and Needlepoint vs cross stitch.
A short history
- The Middle Ages. The crossed stitch is one of the oldest in embroidery. Museums and needlework schools date the earliest surviving pieces differently, anywhere from the sixth century to the thirteenth, depending on what they count as the first.
- The 1500s. Before printed patterns, a stitcher kept a sampler: a cloth of stitches and motifs to copy from later. The first printed pattern books appeared in Germany in the 1520s. The earliest sampler known to carry a stitched date was made in England in 1598.
- The 1600s and 1700s. Samplers became practice pieces for girls learning to sew, with alphabets for marking household linen. In the 1700s they turned into pictures to hang on the wall, and cross stitch became the main stitch on them.
- The 1800s. Berlin wool work, stitched in wool on canvas from patterns printed on squared paper, was the fashion. Today's cross stitch charts, printed in color square by square and often shaded like a painting, come down from it.
- The later 1900s. Counted cross stitch came back as a hobby done for pleasure, and it has stayed.
Is cross stitch hard?
No. It is one of the easiest kinds of needlework to learn, because there is only one stitch and the cloth shows where it goes. The care is in the counting.
A pattern is easy when it has:
- full crosses only, with no fractional stitches;
- few colors;
- a small size;
- Aida cloth, which is what beginners usually start on.
Every cross stitch pattern on this site is charted in full crosses. The Easy patterns are the ones in four colors or fewer and 1,000 stitches or fewer.
A pattern gets harder with:
- quarter and three-quarter stitches, which end in the middle of a square and are easier to place on evenweave or linen than on Aida;
- single stitches scattered about in many colors, which stitchers call confetti;
- a finer cloth, such as linen stitched over two threads.
How it is spelled
Both ways. Dictionaries write it with a hyphen: cross-stitch, and for the verb cross-stitched and cross-stitching. Needlework guilds and schools mostly write two words: cross stitch. Counted cross stitch is the same craft named in full. This site writes cross stitch.
Where to go next
New to it? Cross stitch for beginners sets out a first project and what to learn in which order. To see what people stitch, browse cross stitch patterns by subject.