How to Join Cross Stitch Sides
(Part 3)

If you found your way here, you have already completed parts 1 and 2 of this tutorial. We are in the home stretch!

Almost Finished!

8. To hold these folded flaps in place, line up the holes on the front of the fabric with the holes in the folded flaps. Baste all the way around.

To do this, knot a single strand of floss. Starting in the second hole from the corner, go in and out of every second stitch, all around the perimeter of the piece (these stitches will be removed later). Remove the pins as you go.

You can now remove the basted stitches at the edge of the piece (the ones you used to guide your folding). Leave in the basting you just completed to hold the flaps in place.

Now Repeat these steps for Design B.

And the Two Become One

9. To join the two pieces knot a single strand of floss, and bury the thread on the back as close as possible to the upper right corner of Design A. Bring your needle up to the front in the first corner hole (marked 1 in the diagram).

NOTE: The blue stitches on the diagram represent how the stitches appear on Design B, if you could see through the fabric.

Place Design A and Design B together, back sides together. Align the corners, and bring floss around the top outside edge (2) and "sew" the two sides together by coming back up through the same corner hole (1) of both designs.

Bring the floss around the right outside edge (3) and come up again through the next hole (4). This will anchor the two sides together. From the top side of Design A, it will look like an "L" shape.

Since you will be sewing through four layers of fabric, It can be a little tricky to get all four holes aligned. Sometimes you have to insert your needle in through each layer of fabric individually. Patience is the key here.

If you will be adding a ribbon hanger with ends that are buried inside the ornament, sew the sides (or corner) that will enclose those ends first. Thread a narrow ribbon through a larger needle in the same way you thread floss.

Bring your needle up through the hole where the ribbon is located on Design A. Then go down through the matching hole on Design B. Adjust the length of the loop, then tie the raw ends together (these knotted ends will ultimately be inside the ornament).

Continue to sew around all four sides of the fabric. As you come around each corner, your floss will pass through each corner hole twice, as it did when you started out.

The corners will naturally meet. If they don't, you have made an error somewhere along the way. Because your floss matches your fabric, a skipped hole is easy to miss when looking for the problem. Working backwards from where you first noticed it was not aligned, magnify and examine your stitching. When you do find the problem, remove your stitches back to that point and redo the work.

If you wish to pad your ornament, stop stitching when you have only one half of one side left. Lightly stuff the inside with batting or other filler, and stitch the ornament closed.

When you make your last stitch, thread the needle between the two sides for an inch or so. Push the needle back out to the front of one of the sides. Pull slightly and cut. When you release the floss and flatten the fabric, the end should pull back between the two sides and disappear.

Click here to return to Page 1 of How to Join Cross Stitch Sides

Click here to return to Page 2 of How to Join Cross Stitch Sides

Return from How to Join Cross Stitch Sides to How To Cross Stitch

Return from How to Join Cross Stitch Sides to Better Cross Stitch Patterns Home Page