Other stitches

Hi All!

If you're like me, your obsession passion for cross stitch has lead you to attempt stitches other than the basic X.  For me, it's because I've developed an addiction fondness for band samplers.  Some of these stitches seem may seem too difficult to even contemplate attempting.  Believe me, they're not!  Here are some of them that I've heard complaints about:

• French Knots.  This has to be the one I see the most complaints about.  They're not really that difficult.  I can do them just fine but I don't.  Why?  Because I've found the colonial knot to be even easier and it produces more uniform results.  Here's a YouTube video on the colonial knot.
• Lazy Daisies.  These are actually rather fun to do and look so cool.  Here's a great video on the lazy daisy.
• Backstitch.  I'm sorry, this one is easy but so tedious.  The finished effort does make it worth doing (sigh).
• Hardanger.  This is more of an embroidery style than a single stitch.  What really intimidates people with this is cutting the fabric.  Yes, making that first cut is scary!  I follow the rule of quadruple-check where you are supposed to cut before you actually do!  Once you've made the first cut, I'd love to say that it's easy going.  It's not, depending on the pattern.  The ones that I've done have required a lot of cutting.  The where becomes second nature.  The doing it becomes really tiring on the hands.

I hope this post helps with some of the non-X stitches.  If you have a stitch you don't like or are afraid to attempt, post it in the comments and I'll see about doing an expanded post.

Happy Stitching!

Stacy