hey pals! as you are no doubt aware if you’ve been hanging around here at Alana Menschinresidence dot hellsite for any length of time, ya girl is currently unemployed and recently took up cross-stitching – and what else can I be expected to do with this skill than attempt to monetize it! so. if anything in these photos seems like your jam, or you’ve ever seen one of those pinterest boards full of needlework pieces that say like ~damn it feels good to be a gangster~ and thought, “I should ask the squarest white girl I know to make one of these for me,” or you’re just tickled by the mental image of me tipsy off one beer and singing along full voice to old movie musicals while stabbing something several hundred times*, and feel like throwing some of your hard-earned cash in my direction, slide into my DMs and we’ll chat!! thanks babes. you’re all diamonds and I love youuuu.
(*”ALL THAT WORK AND WHAT DID IT GET ME… WHAT DID IT GET ME?” -me, realizing I’ve miscounted my stitches)
Dedicated to all the well-meaning, ill-informed strangers who see me stitching in the wild
this is one of the most meta things that I have ever seen. the layers and experiences needed to understand this are absolutely hilarious. this is amazing and I love it. ❤
Yes hello i need this. Is there a pattern i can has?
There absolutely is a pattern. You can grab it here
so @titusandromeda asked me how to plan out a cross stitch and I’m answering in a text post so I can add pics bc a bitch is thorough
idk how much of this you already know so I’ll just take you through how I do it!
this website has a text generator with a bunch of different fonts to play around with, it’s hella handy! observe:
short answer: start in the middle! this is roughly 45 x 60 stitches – the A of “suck a dick” is about the middle, so that’s where I would start (to find the middle of your fabric, just fold it into quarters and lightly crease it, you can always wash/iron it out later). how much fabric you need depends on the count, aka number of stitches per inch – 14 count fabric = 14 stitches per inch (14 and 16 count are probably the most popular esp for beginners, I use 14 pretty much exclusively). so 45 ×60 stitches at 14 stitches per inch = 3.2 × 4.2, so let’s round up and say 4 x 5 for the text alone. personally, I’d leave about another 3 inches of extra space on all sides to add a border and a little bit of slack to mount or frame it. that site also has a handy dandy calculator function to do this work for you!
another couple of things to keep in ur back pocket:
you can get free and inexpensive patterns basically everywhere – pinterest, etsy, whatever, just google!
don’t worry about what the backs of your pieces look like. it doesn’t matter! it’s fine! life’s too short!
TAKE BREAKS. more than once I’ve hyperfocused and spent hours hunched over stitching a piece and then my neck is at a 45 degree angle and my hands don’t work. don’t be like me, kids
when you’re finished, I’d suggest hand-washing your piece in cool/lukewarm water with mild soap like Dove or Ivory (so feel free to make light pencil marks while you’re working on it if you need to, you’ll just wash em out) and lay flat to dry. this might not be 1000% necessary, but the oils from your hands might discolour the fabric as it ages, so I think it’s worth it! you can also iron it lightly on a low setting, facedown, if you feel like you need to. just be careful with the wet piece bc sometimes thread isn’t totally colourfast (I’ve never had an issue with this, personally).
ALL THIS BEING SAID, you almost definitely will miscount your stitches or fuck up at some point without catching it and end up with something a little off-center or whatever. that’s annoying as fuck but it’s basically inevitable, so try to roll with it. sometimes u spend hours on something and it comes out a lil wonky! that’s how she goes! death is inevitable! it’s fine!!
sorry if this seems like A Lot – honestly it’s pretty smooth sailing once you get the hang of it. hmu if anything’s unclear or you have questions!! 💖
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