And other hot takes I have about cross stitch and its effects on my view of the craft specific to me

To be honest, cross stitch is a dying art in the U.S. Every time I go into Hobby Lobby or Walmart, the cross stitch selection gets smaller and smaller. The only upside is that all the materials are usually on sale, but that’s whatever. Cross stitch may be slowly dying but it will never fully be dead as long as people keep the interest up through their own artwork.

I would have never gotten into this if I hadn’t seen so many cool and modern cross stitch patterns on Pinterest. I would have never gotten into it at all if all I had to work with were the older patterns like this. So as a way to keep the interest alive, I have decided to put my patterns out into the world, in hopes of enticing other young people into learning it as well.

This first pattern is more of a base than a pattern, but that’s only because it’s set up for customization. This pattern is the basic pattern of a person. This exact pattern is a pattern that represents me, but it can be changed to fit whatever you want to do to it. That’s the beauty of cross stitch and creativity.

I used floss from a kit that wasn’t labeled and wasn’t DMC, so if there’s a color you like here, the best bet is to try and match it up to whatever floss type you like the most. The pattern is set up using DMC floss though, just as all the patterns I make will be. I used 14 count Aida cloth, but you can switch that out based on how big you want your finished project to be.

This project is made to be tweaked, so this pattern is more of a base that you edit to fit your project and creativity levels. Editing is one of the most fun things about cross stitch to me. You get the control to change things that you don’t want and put things in as needed.

It also helps when you forget how to count and you stitch something incorrectly and only realize it later when you’re too far in to go back, which happens to me all the time. It’s the little bits of character like that just make it.

So to recap, cross stitch is dying and I want to help revive it, patterns are meant to be changed it builds character, and this pattern is available for free use below made on Stitch Fiddle.