Tutorial: How to make your own Cross Stitch pattern

I've never tried cross stitching before, but after finding a grey checkers fabric in my stash, and given the upcoming Valentine's Day, I just knew I had to try making a cross stitch heart. As it happens, my Internet connection didn't work at that time and since I have a problem with delayed gratification, I ended up having to make my own pattern. It turned out to be quite easy, so I decided to make a tutorial for all of you who wants to try it, but don't know where to start.

Ready?

Here we go:

1. Start by measuring your squares (height and width) so you'll know how big is the area your working on. Mark the area on a checkered piece of paper. If you plan to use a big piece of fabric you can skip this step.

2. Find the center of your working area and mark a cross about 1/3 from the bottom. This is the bottom of you heart shape pattern. You'll be working from this point up. The important thing in this method is to mark the crosses on both sides of the square from the previous row and not directly on top of it. So, move one row up and mark two crosses on both sides of the cross you just marked as the bottom of the heart, like so:

3.  Continue marking crosses row after row until you reach your desired height. This should be at around the middle of your working area. Note that the number of crosses will grow by one in each row, and you get a diagonal line on each side of the heart bottom part, like so:

4. Now you want to build the heart's height, so you should keep the rows in the same length. Here I made three more rows, and you can see that the first and third rows are of the same length and the middle one is not exceeding their length:

5. When you're satisfied with your heart's height, find the cross that is exactly over the one at the bottom of the heart (see picture below). If you can't find one, you should make another row or look at the lower row.

6. Now you're ready to start finishing the heart with it's two half circles on each side. This means that from this point on you will not mark any more crosses in the area between both diagonal lines of the cross you marked. See picture below.

7. On your next row, start decreasing the length of the row on each end, like the picture below. Continue with your rows until you only have two crosses on each side of the heart.

That's it. This heart is done!

You can change the amount of rows at the bottom of the heart, which will effect it's width, and with the amount of rows in the middle of the heart (the height). Just try it out and play with it until you get the heart that suits you best.

This is how your heart will look like if you make fewer rows in the height of the heart (step 5):

Now go ahead and copy your pattern to your fabric to make a beautiful heart using the cross stitch technique.

You can use this technique to make a pattern for any kind of shape, even letters and numbers.

Here are a few of mine:

Heart Shape Cross Stitch

"LOVE" Cross Stitch

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Thanks for stopping by,
Shimrit