Waste canvas requires extra time and effort for the removal of the waste canvas, since you have to pull out each thread of the canvas individually from underneath the stitches. It’s relatively inexpensive, compared to the water-soluble canvas mentioned below.Ĭons: Waste canvas requires an extra step of basting the waste canvas in place. It can be had in different counts – 8.5 count, 10 count, 14 count, and 18 count, depending on the brand. It provides a similar “tactile” stitching experience to even-weave, since the needle slips right into a pre-determined spot. There are some pros and cons, in my opinion, to all three methods for working counted cross stitch on plain weave fabric. When you’re finished with the stitching, the next part is kind of fun!Ī little warm, soapy water bath for a few minutes, some extra spraying with the nozzle to make sure all the stabilizer and soap are rinsed away, and you’re finished! The Pros and Cons of Different Methods Then, determine the placement of the design on your fabric, peel away the paper backing, and stick the Solvy into place. If you decide to pre-mark you design, you can cut around it, leaving a few squares of the grid for a margin (don’t cut right up to where your stitches end, as the Solvy gets messy on the edge if you’re stitching right over the edge). If you use a light blue pen like this and then stick the Solvy onto a light blue fabric, for example, you won’t be able to see the marks. Make sure that you test before hand to see if the pen you’re using to mark the design onto the Solvy will show, once the Solvy is stuck on your fabric. If you’re riding in a car, commuting on a train or bus, flying on an airplane, or sitting in a waiting room somewhere, you don’t need to refer to a chart while you’re stitching.
#Counted cross stitch graph paper portable
Pre-marking on the Solvy makes portable stitching super easy. Or, you can do what I did, and use a water-soluble marker (or something similar – don’t use a Sharpie!) to pre-mark the design, so that I didn’t have to refer to a chart while actually stitching. Then you just work your cross stitch on the grid, using the dots or the intersections on the grid as your stitch placement guide.
#Counted cross stitch graph paper pdf
I like to print a dotted grid (I’ve included a PDF printable for this particular dotted grid below), rather than a full-line grid, but you can do either. So, using Sticky Fabri-Solvy for cross stitch is not really much different from using it for surface embroidery, except that, instead of printing a design, you just print your grid. They do have some drawbacks – and you certainly wouldn’t use them on any kind of embroidery that you couldn’t wash! – but this type of printable, water-soluble stabilizer is terrific for projects on washable household items, like flour sack towels and the like. They supply an easy way to print a design and get it onto your fabric, to start stitching right away.
Mostly, Transfer-Eze and Sticky Fabri-Solvy are used in the hand embroidery world for surface embroidery. It comes in printer-sized sheets (12 to a package), and it’s very easy to use.Īlthough I haven’t written an article devoted solely to Fabri-Solvy, I’ve written a tutorial and review about Transfer-eze, which came out before Fabri-Solvy, and which is exactly the same concept. It’s called Sticky Fabri-Solvy, and it’s a printable, stick-on, water-soluble stabilizer.
It involves another product, and you might even have some on hand. A Third Option for Cross Stitching on Plain Weave Fabric Soluble canvas by DMC is a plastic sheet with evenly spaced holes in it, and you stitch into those holes. Waste canvas is a stiffish, open-weave fabric that you stitch over, and then you pull the threads of the canvas out from underneath your stitches. The first two options I mentioned were waste canvas and soluble canvas. There’s no grid on plain weave fabric, so you have to supply a grid, if you want decent looking cross stitches. Remember, plain weave fabric is any fabric that isn’t an even-weave fabric like the kind you’d normally use for counted work. In that article, we chatted about three ways that you can work cross stitch – or any counted technique, really – on plain weave fabric, but I didn’t clarify the third way you could do it, because I hadn’t finished my little stitchy projects to test it out.īut now I’ve finished them, so here we go!Īll three methods involve some sort of something that supplies a grid for the plain weave fabric. On Monday, I shared with you a pattern for cross-stitched snowflakes of a folky sort, that can be used to embellish table linens, ornaments, and whatnot for the holiday season.