Stardew Valley Inspired Cross Stitch: Part 2 Cross Stitch Basics

For this project I wanted to make a portrait using my partner and I's characters from the game Stardew Valley and of course I had to include our cats. Stardew Valley lends itself particularly well to cross stitch due to the game's pixel art style. This tutorial will show you the basic skills needed to complete this pattern. We will only be using the basic cross stitch skill to complete this pattern.

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See Part 1 for pattern design.

1. embroidery floss
2. approximately 12 inches+ of Aida cloth
3. 8 inch embroidery hoop
4. size 24 tapestry needle
5. scissors
6. pattern

Pro-tip!

You can buy Aida cloth at the craft store, but you can also find it in unused/unfinished kits at thrift stores or your grandma's attic

1. Crease Aida cloth down the middle both ways, making two creases that intersect in the middle of the fabric. This will make it easier to count stitches and figure out where on the fabric to start
2. Set the smaller part of the hoop on a flat surface and center the Aida cloth on top of it
3. Loosen the screen at the top of the larger part of the hoop and press it over the smaller hoop, trapping the Aida fabric between them
4. Tighten the screw at the top and gently tug the edges of the fabric to ensure that it is snug.

1. Choose where you want to start in the pattern (close to those center lines is easiest) and grab the skein of embroidery floss that is that color.
2. I chose to start with the brown outline around the heart
3. Find the end of the floss and cut a length 12-14 inches long. I like measure it from the tips of my fingers to just past my elbow
4. Separate one strand of thread from the length of floss that you cut
5. Fold the single thread in half, aligning the two ends, this will allow you to embroider with two strands at once
6. Thread the needle

Pro-tip!

I find it easier to thread the needle if you make a small loop of the ends and thread that through the eye of the needle, otherwise you can just use a needle threader too.

1. Use the center lines on the pattern and the creases in the Aida cloth to figure out where your first stitch will be
2. I decided to do the dark brown stitch at the bottom of the heart bubble first. This was on the vertical center line and 10 stitches above the horizontal center line
3. The Aida is a wide weave fabric, use the holes to envision the stitches a cross stich is essentially a box, it has four corners, so it will take up four holes
4. Adjacent stitches may share the same hole for the corners of the cross stitch

The First Stitch/Anchoring your thread - You will start every new strand of thread of this way

1. Insert you hook into the bottom left corner of the stitch from the front of the fabric, leaving the little loop of thread at the end sticking out
2. bring your needle through the back of the fabric in the upper right corner
3. Insert your needle into the loop and draw it through, pulling the loop closed into a slip knot
4. To hide the knot, insert your needle back into the hole that it just came out of and pull the slip knot to the back of the fabric
5. Complete the cross stitch by coming back up through bottom right corner and inserting your needle into the top left corner

1. Identify what stitch you'd like to do next (usually an adjacent one) and continue cross stitching. If you want to do a stitch in the same color that's more than a few spaces away, consider cutting thread and starting a new thread in that spot

Be consistent about which direction you make your cross stitches. I always do bottom left corner to top right and then bottom right to top left.

1. When covering larger spaces with one color or stitching in vertical column, you will want to go up the line making stroke/half of each stitch and then come back down the line doing the other half.
2. Continue to be consistent about which half of the stitch you do first - left to right and then right to left.

Finishing a piece of thread:

1. To finish a piece of thread, make sure that your needle is at the back of your work and flip the hoop over so that you're looking at the backs of the stitches
2. Use the needle to slide the thread under the backs of 3-5 stitches without going through the fabric
3. This will be adequate to keep your stitches from coming loose
4. Trim the end of the thread to keep the tail short and avoid getting knotted as you continue stitching

1. Continue following the grid to complete you cross stitch project
2. I like to stitch one element/character at a time and then choose one that close something that's finished to make it easier to count how many stitches to skip
3. The order that you stitch things in doesn't really matter, so just have fun with it!

Happy Making!