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Christmas cross stitch

2018-12-23

Recently, I made myself a new Christmas decoration:

Loyal readers may recognise the Platonic solid presents from last year's Christmas card, last year's Advent calendar medals, or this year's Advent calendar medals.

If you'd like to make your own Platonic solids Christmas cross stitch, you can find the instructions below. I'm also currently putting together some prototype Platonic solids cross stitch kits (that may be available to buy at some point in the future), and will be adding these to the piles of prizes for this year's Advent calendar.

You will need

A cross stitch needle
Red cross stitch thread (for the ribbon)
Black cross stitch thread (for the outlines)
Non-red cross stitch thread (for the wrapping paper: I chose a different colour for each solid)
Cross stitch aida

Instructions

Cross stitch thread is made up of 6 strands twisted together. When doing your cross stitch, it's best to use two strands at a time: so start by cutting a sensible length of thread and splitting this into pairs of strands. Thread one pair of strands into the needle.

Following the patterns below, cross stitch rows of red and non-red crosses. To stitch a row, first go along the row sewing diagonals in one direction, then go back along the row sewing the other diagonals. When you've finished the row, move the the row above and repeat. This is shown in the animation below.

When doing the first row, make sure the stiches on the back cover the loose end of thread to hold it in place. Looking at the back of the aida, it should look something like this:

When you are running out of thread, or you have finished a colour, finish a stitch so the needle is at the back.

Then pass the needle through some of the stitches on the back so that the loose end will be held in place.

Patterns

The patterns for each solid are shown below. For each shape, the left pattern shows which colours you should cross in each square (/ means red, o means non-red); and the right pattern shows where to add black lines after the crosses are all done.