Cross Stitch Fabric Choices

How often have you found yourself in a position where you happily choose your cross stitch design, the colours are preselected for you by the designer, but you are stuck when it comes to fabric choice.

Cross stitch fabric easily trips anyone up because there are so many colours of threads involved when it comes to the embroidery cottons and let’s face it no one wants to continuously use White, Off White and Ecru in order to remain safe. Infact, even those 3 ‘safe’ colours can end up being the ‘wrong’ colour choice.

White can be to stark, Ecru can be to cream and Off White can be well, to dull. So a conundrum it is.

There is however a time consuming but simple solution. Take the skeins of embroidery threads that’s being used in the design, place them on the fabric and see which ones blend in too much. i.e they are exactly the same or very similar to the fabric colour. If you have that scenario then that’s not the right fabric colour for the design. Remember there has to be a good contrast between the fabric and the threads so that the picture is clearly defined.

Now granted this solution only works when you have the fabric in hand, hence purchasing fabric from an online only store can be risky. But in a world where more and more needlecraft stores are closing down due to many reasons such as low return on investment, more stores are also moving into the online only environment. Therefore it becomes imperative for the needlecrafter to improvise. It is not the ideal to ask the retailer to choose for you, even if she is prepared to. Why? Because everyones tastes differ. She might prefer something you hate and because you purchased, there is no turning back.

The easiest solution therefore when it comes to fabric is to have a sample selection. Now, fabric is expensive, so how on earth does the needlecrafter build up a sample selection??? Well, its simple. Some stores custom cut cross stitch fabric which essentially means they will have off cuts or smaller precuts left over. If they are smart then they would be packaging these smaller pieces for sale and listing them on the website. So, next time you place an order with the retailer, order a smaller piece of fabric in a count and colour you do not usually have. Get a flip file and file it, clearly labelled with colour and fabric count as well as the retailer you bought it from as we do not all keep the same fabrics. This will then enable you to get a better idea of fabric choices for your next project.

Needlework Emporium custom cuts cross stitch fabric and lists all precuts on the website.

For Custom cut please go to: https://www.needleworkemporium.co.za/products/cross-stitch/custom-cut-cross-stitch-fabric

For Precut fabrics go to: https://www.needleworkemporium.co.za/products/cross-stitch/cross-stitch-fabric

For further information email: info@needleworkemporium.co.za