How to make your own crapestry.

This is the general technique that I have developed:

1.) I choose a cross stitch kit (most of my kits are discovered on, and purchased from, ebay.co.uk)…

Original design from Paco

2.) I have a brilliant idea as to how I can modify my chosen kit (this usually happens just before I decide to buy it), in this case I wanted to replace the sunset with a nuclear explosion.

3.) When the kit arrives I take a digital photograph of the naked canvas (in some cases I partly complete the kit to get an idea of the colours…

'raw' canvas

4.) Using Photoshop, or sometimes Gimp, I modify the photograph of the canvas. I often use images grabbed from google as reference material in the design (in this case the explosion came from http://newt.org/Portals/0/UltraPhotoGallery/706/NuclearExplosion.jpg)…

An explosion added to the picture of the raw canvas using Photoshop

5.) I generally create my crapestry designs by by adding coloured circles to the original canvas photograph to represent my new stitches…

Coloured dots represent stitches in my new crapestry design

6.) I then mount the canvas on a wooden ‘stretching frame’ (also available on eBay).

7.) At this stage I paint the new digitally modified design onto the canvas with acrylic paints.

8.) I then stitch the kit according to my new design (but referring to original instructions/picture as well).

9.) Finally, I mount the finished crapestry into a picture frame…

'Evening' from the 'War' collection

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Some other advice, take it or leave it…
1.) I try to use only the colours that are supplied in the kit, or that I have in storage already (every kit has spare wool included – this adds up to quite a lot when you’ve done as many kits as I have), as it saves having to source more wool. On several occasions I have resorted to buying an additional kit in order to get more of a particular colour.

2.) If you want to stitch a very light coloured wool over a very dark colour that is printed on the canvas then you must repaint the canvas with a similarly light colour beforehand. Conversely, if you want to stitch a very dark coloured wool over a very light colour that is printed on the canvas then you must also repaint the canvas a similarly dark colour beforehand. For the best possible result, I repaint every change to the design onto the canvas.

3). Every few stitches, ‘roll’ the needle anti-clockwise between your finger and thumb. This takes some practice, but it ensures a pleasant ‘rope effect’ is maintained in the yarn.

4). Plan your stitches. This sounds obvious! The angle that you approach the stitch will effect the final form of the cross. Experiment with different approach angles, and be consistent.

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