Guides / Getting started
A first piece needs very little: fabric, thread, a needle and a pair of scissors. Here is what to ask for in the shop, and why.
It can all be found in a haberdashery or the craft aisle. Four things are enough for a first design: fabric, thread, a needle and scissors. The rest can wait until you know whether you enjoy it, and experienced stitchers all say the same thing: at the start, everybody buys too much.
Aida is woven in small blocks, with a clearly visible hole at each corner. Each block takes one stitch: there is nothing to count in the weave, the fabric does it for you. That is why almost everybody starts on it.
Ask for 14-count (also written “14 ct”): 5.5 stitches per centimetre, large enough to see the holes easily, fine enough for a design to look good. 18-count is tempting because it looks finer, but its holes are small and tire the eyes quickly; keep it for later.
White or ecru both work. Look at it in daylight before buying: an ecru that looks white under a lamp can turn out clearly beige by a window, and that changes how the light threads read. A 30 × 40 cm piece is enough for most first designs; the guide to fabric and size and the fabric calculator tell you exactly what to cut.
The thread of cross stitch is stranded cotton: an 8-metre skein of six fine strands, separated before stitching. DMC's is reference 117 and comes in nearly 500 colours, each known by a number. 310 is black, White the everyday white, B5200 a brighter white, Ecru an off-white, and 321 a true red found in nearly every Christmas chart.
Your chart's key lists the numbers to buy. A skein covers about 1,500 stitches at two strands on 14-count aida, which is enough for most colours of a small design.
Anchor, Madeira and Cosmo make stranded cotton too, of comparable quality, with their own numbers. The DMC colour chart and those for Anchor, Madeira and Cosmo give each thread's colour and its equivalents in the other brands.
Tip. Bags of 50 unbranded skeins are fine for a first try, but their colours carry no number: you cannot buy a matching skein halfway through a piece, nor follow a chart's key.
A tapestry needle has a rounded tip and a large eye. The blunt tip slips through the holes of the fabric without splitting the threads, and the large eye takes two strands without forcing. A sharp sewing needle, on the other hand, goes in anywhere and snags neighbouring stitches.
Its size follows the fabric: 22 for 11-count aida, 24 for 14-count, 26 for 16 or 18-count. The higher the number, the finer the needle. Buy a packet rather than a single one: they get lost quickly, and a needle that has tarnished drags on the thread.
A small pair with fine, pointed blades cuts thread close to the work. Keep large dressmaking scissors for the fabric: they cut badly near stitches, and that is how a piece ends up nicked.
A hoop is a ring of wood or plastic that holds the fabric taut. On 14-count aida, which is fairly stiff, you do not need one: many stitchers hold the fabric in their hand. It mostly helps keep an even tension, and so even stitches.
If you get one, choose 15 to 20 cm across, and take the fabric out at the end of each session. Left taut for days, it keeps a round mark that only washing removes, as the guide to washing and pressing explains. Square plastic clip frames do the same job and mark less.
A needle threader, a daylight lamp, a needle minder magnet, card bobbins to store thread, a floor stand: all of them help, none is essential for a first design.
A pencil, on the other hand, nearly is. Tick off the squares you have stitched on a copy of the chart, and you will find your place in a moment every time you pick it up. The guide to reading a chart has the other tricks for not getting lost.
Tip. As for budget, count a few euros for a piece of aida, about a euro per skein and two or three euros for a packet of needles. A small eight-colour design comes to around twenty euros, scissors aside.
A kit brings together the chart, the cut fabric, the counted threads and a needle. Handy for a first try, but you are stitching someone else's design, and the thread is counted to the last centimetre.
Buying separately, you stitch the chart of your choice: one from the gallery, among the animals, flowers or motifs, or one of your photos turned into a chart. For a first piece, aim for about fifty stitches wide and fewer than ten colours: the guide to choosing the size of a chart explains why.