pattern chart for your own counted cross-stitch.
___Printed at this scale, this can be used as a cross-stitch pattern chart for your own embroidery. It is set at about 8 stitches per inch. Cross-stitch is worked usually over 2 threads each way on even-weave fabric, or, at this scale or larger, it can be sewn on finer fabric directly over the printed stitches. Straight lines are worked in backstitch. Printed patterns for cross-stitch of that sort were available at least in the mid to late 1900s, often used for pillowcases. I do not recommend embroidering cross-stitch from the reverse - I have done it, and it was very hard to keep the geometry straight in my mind backwards!__At this size or smaller, this makes a cross-stitch look fabric, a cheater embroidery fabric. ___ I was doing the designs that are the basis for this set of fabrics in the 1980s and very early 1990s. Most of them have been hiding in my graph-paper notebooks ever since; a few I embroidered as counted-cross-stitch on even-weave fabric or Aida cloth. I did a version of this sampler as counted-cross-stitch.___My philosophy of cross-stitch design prefers to use the minimum number of stitches per motif to make the identity clear, and that flowers should be identifiable (sometimes to genus and species), even when drawn in pencil. No "it's a mass of amorphous purple, it must be violets".___ You will notice that this fewer-stitches-per-motif design philosophy means less work for the embroiderer too. Besides a sampler for the wall, this would make a great pillow-cover or chair-seat design.___Or a great place-mat or tray cloth.___Slightly updated October 2014. See other cross-stitch designs in my cross-stitch collection, and a cross-stitch teatowel calendar in the linen teatowels collection.___ See the smaller version at http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/2586671 ___ The smaller one, which looks very like real cross-stitch embroidery, is now for sale.