• Beginners may want to use an embroidery hoop to help regulate the tension of your stitches. However, at any level of experience, if you find your cloth pulling in one direction, an embroidery hoop is a must.
• Wash your hands before starting to work to remove natural oils.
• Good light and a comfortable chair will make your work more pleasant.

Kits by Foxberry Cottage Crafts contain
14- or 18-count Aida cloth, meaning the fabric is woven in a grid-like pattern with
14 or 18 pattern blocks to the inch.

• Sort floss by colour in daylight.
• Check colours and quantities with the legend.
• Tape a clipping of each colour of floss next to its symbol on the legend for easy reference.

• Work from a photocopy enlargement - easier on the eyes.
• Never mark up your original chart. Use a photocopy for the following tips.
• Match coloured pencils to floss and colour over black and white symbol areas.
• Mark your progress with a straight pin.
• Mark off stitched areas with a pen or pencil.

• Baste a 10 x 10 (stitch count) grid right on the cloth. You then have a background that matches the heavier lines of grid on the chart.
• Do not use floss from the kit as packaged quantities do not allow for this.
• When your cross-stitched piece is complete, remove the basting threads.

• Use for tartan maps or nay irregular outlines.
• Do not use floss from the kit as packaged quantities do not allow for this.
• Use a single strand of floss or regular sewing thread in a light or neutral shade.
• Remove visible threads after cross-stitch is complete.

Do not skip this important step. Only by correctly positioning your first stitch can you ensure that you do not work yourself off the edge of your fabric.

• Measure and mark the centre point of cloth.
• Take note of centre marks on pattern (indicated by a triangle at borders.)

• Select a larger area of a single colour. It can be anywhere on the chart, but if, like many people, you prefer to work from top left to lower right of the fabric, you should start at or near the top left of the pattern.
• Count the horizontal and vertical squares from the centre marks on the pattern to the top left block of the selected area. Jot these numbers down.
• Count out from the marked centre of your cloth. This is your starting position.

• Bring both free ends of a single 36" strand (shown here as a single line) together to form a loop at one end.
• Thread the free ends through the needle to form a double strand, 18" long.
• Pass the needle through the cloth from back to front, leaving a few inches of loose floss on reverse side.
• On right side make a single diagonal stitch. (See Cross-stitch Basics below)
• Turn cloth over; pass needle through the loop. (See Figure 2)
• Pull the stitch taut, but not tight, and flat against cloth.

• Anchor ends of floss by passing the needle under 4-6 existing stitches on the reverse side.
• Clip off excess floss close to cloth.
• Never use knots to tie off ends.

1. Make rows of diagonal stitches, working from lower left to upper right of each "square."
2. Cross with a row of opposite diagonals, working from lower right to upper left. (Figure 3)

• Break up long rows by working them in 'boxes' of more comfortable lengths.
• Do not trail floss haphazardly over the back of your work, or over blank areas.
• To carry floss short distances from one area to another without clipping: anchor the floss under finished stitches in vertical and horizontal directions to bring it to the new starting position.
• Start each section with the largest solid area of a single colour. This gives you a better base for anchoring ends, and for counting.
• You may thread several needles, one for each colour floss used in the area in which you are working. Work in uninterrupted rows by changing needles as required.

• The direction of short stitches is always toward the opposite corner, as indicated by the dotted extension of the line in the diagrams.
• Create a guide for partial stitches by back-stitching the outline in a single strand of same colour floss, or in a light neutral colour.
• You may avoid partial stitches by working the 1/2 and 3/4 stitches as full stitches, and omitting 1/4 stitches. When backstitching, follow the revised outline. The resulting design will have a less refined appearance around the edges.

1. Make the short stitch from the corner to the centre of the block, or 1/2 the length of the diagonal to the opposite corner.
2. You may omit the long stitch when the final outline will cover it.

1. Make the short diagonal stitch approx. 2/3 the full diagonal length to the opposite corner.
2. Make the crossing stitch as usual.

1. Make the short diagonal stitch approx. 1/3 the full diagonal length to the opposite corner.
2. Do not make a crossing stitch.

• Finish all cross-stitching before outlining unless noted otherwise on instructions included with the kit. There is one exception - See USEFUL HINTS above.
• Work outlines in a back-stitch as shown.
• Work outlines of most prominent objects or detailing last.

• no knots
• clipped ends
• no zig-zagging floss, especially over unworked fabric
• all floss tacked neatly under stitches in vertical and horizontal directions only.

• uniform tension - cloth will not be pulled out of shape by the stitching
• all top stitches crossed in the same direction
• uniform appearance of stitches
• no missed stitches
• even outline stitches overlaying the cross-stitching.

• Even if the finished work appears to be clean, hand wash or dry clean to remove hidden dirt and natural body oils from materials.
• Foxberry Cottage Crafts takes no responsibility for color-fastness. We highly recommend test washing a swatch of floss.
• Dampen and stretch into shape using a straight edge to align blocks on each side.

1. Mount the work on self-adhesive mounting board. From personal experience, the mounting board will not hold in damp conditions.
2. Dry-mounting. This will press the stitches nearly flat, losing some of the 3-dimensional quality.
3. Stretching over foamblock. The preferrable method for maintaining what may one day be an "heirloom" piece, since the cloth does not come into contact with adhesives.

• As with any endeavour, a positive attitude will help minimize errors.
• It's not uncommon, as a beginner, to look at a chart and suddenly feel overwhelmed. (Where do I start? How will I ever get this finished?) Take a deep breath, focus and remember: it's just one stitch at a time.
• Be patient with yourself. Before you even start, accept that you will make errors. With experience you will make fewer, but know that EVERYONE slips up sometimes.

• Count carefully - every time.
• RECOUNT and COUNT AGAIN!
• Make it a habit to monitor your stitching position often using finished areas as checkpoints, especially
  • after you make the first diagonal in a new area.
  • at the end of the underlying row of diagonals.
  • and any time at all.
• Work areas adjacent to those already finished using existing rows as a reference point.
• Work from a photocopy (Never mark up your original chart)

• Awful Truth No.1: No matter how small the mistake, you might as well resign yourself. You're probably going to have to remove the entire strand.
  Remove stitches in the opposite order to which they were stitched.
• Awful Truth No. 2: It can take as much time to remove the work than to do the stitching.
  Be prepared to snip your way through snags where other stitches have caught the floss.

• Small errors can sometimes be salvaged. But you must be brave enough to rely on your own ingenuity.
• For example, an error on a free-form object like a leaf or flower may not seriously affect the appearance, and may be ignored. Consider it your own artistic contribution! But you will have to compensate - see below.
• On well-defined shapes like buildings errors may be compensated for by adding rows on the entire building so that it is slightly bigger than the pattern shows. The key is to maintain the outline, and also to keep any features like roof peak, door or window centred if they were centred on the chart.

Let's use The Foxberry Cottage kit "Company Houses" as an example.

• SCENARIO 1 - ROOF STITCHED TOO WIDE
  • If it's the middle house, there's a problem. You have 3 matching figures, with specific spacing of windows and doors and a central peak. You have little choice but to remove stitches.
  • If it's one of the others with the right side in the trees, you can compensate with the free-form object - the tree. If the tree is not yet stitched, you could move the entire tree. If it has been stitched, you might ignore the fact that some of the leaf squares have been stitched as roof squares - and just keep going. Or you could add extra stitches here and there to maintain the width. But you may have to remove and restitch the trunk if it appears off-centre.

• SCENARIO 2 - HOUSES STITCHED TOO CLOSE TOGETHER
  • Very simple - Stitch the clothes on the line until you come to the house. If you are short a block or two - just stop. Is it really going to matter if the shirt is closer to the house or you see less of the barn??

• SCENARIO 3 - HOUSES STITCHED TOO FAR APART
  • Another simple fix - Fill in the extra row(s) of grass, hedge, or whatever with the appropriate colours.

• SCENARIO 4 - BUSH STITCHED TOO FAR RIGHT
  You have started the house on the left. You stitch the lilac bush too far to the right. There is no need to change this. BUT when you are stitching the window, you must count from the edge of the house wall, and not from the lilac bush. This might mean that the lilac bush actually hides part of the window - but who's going to know it's different from the chart?

• Mostly it's just common sense.
• On a pattern copy - NEVER (!) on the original - mark small errors as they were stitched. Use this for reference as you continue to work.
• After you have discovered an error, use the following types of object as a countng reference to get you back on track.
  • structured objects - like buildings or geometric forms
  • objects with a pre-determined shape - like humans or animals
  • dominant objects, usually in the foreground
  In other words, the spacing between these objects should be maintained if possible. Then the changes will occur in the "background" or on the size of less important objects where it isn't likely to matter.
• I even cheat sometimes - by stitching the correct colour over the error. Do this only when
  • the underlying colour is fairly light
  • or when the two colours are similar in tone
  • or for individual stitches or very small areas