How to Make “Whalez Bro” Cross Stitch Art
Behold the glorious ‘Whalez Bro” Cross Stitch Creation. Perfect for brightening up any craft beer den, man cave, she shed, or office. Whether you’d like to stitch out this exact pattern or come up with your own, this blog will help you become more awesome at both those things.
Ideation
For this pattern, I sketched out a general idea on engineering graph paper, then filled in the drawing with tiny ×’s. I prefer using 1/10″ engineering graph paper since 10×10 boxes are bolded, making it easier to count your stitches. The graph paper grid size is up to you, and thanks to the magic of the interwebs you can easily print a couple sheets of your preferred size here.
Once you’ve created your pattern, pick a color theme. If you’re looking for color palette inspirations play with this for a bit.
You’ll need to pick six different colors total for the whale, text & text shadow, the beer & beer tulip, and the water droplets. For the sake of the instructions provided, let’s assume you go with a grey whale, red text, dark red text shadow, golden beer, off-white tulips, and blue water droplets.
Tools & Materials
- • scissors
- • 6 embroidery floss skeins, 1 of each color (buy it here)
- • a nice looking 7″ embroidery hoop (buy it here)
- • embroidery needles (buy it here)
- • at least 10″ x 10″ 14-count Aida cloth (buy it here)
- • a decent amount of free time
Steps
First we want to locate the starting point for your threadwork. Our first cross stitch will be the very top one — the tip of our top water droplet. I located the block to place this on by folding my fabric square in half, then inserting my needle at that point. Once you have it picked, place your fabric into your hoop.
Now make your fabric nice and taught in your hoop, but not too over-stretched in any weird direction.
Time for your first thread cross stitch on your starting block. I usually tie a small knot in my thread just to keep it secure at my starting point.
Making the first × is easy. Start with your threaded needle behind your cloth, pop it up through the top L corner of your block & pull through, then pop it down through the bottom R corner or your block and pull through. Now pop it up through the top R corner of you block & pull through, then pop it down through the bottom L corner or your block and pull through. Oh my gosh, it’s a beautiful ×! It really is much more complicated to read how to do this than to just do it so … go for it and if you mess things up, you can pull it back out and try again. It’s just one × so far. Be fearless. Do it.
Now you get to make about 10000000 more little ×’s until you’ve completed your piece. You’ll also notice some spots where the pattern does not call for an ×, but just a slash ( / or \ ). You can see it pictured on the newest grey row in the photo below. Just follow the pattern, count your blocks like a grown up, and you’ll soon have a beautiful monument to whalez.
When you’ve finished the piece, neatly clip any long, excess thread. If you’re piece isn’t quite centered to your liking, readjust your hoop placement until it is, then tuck your excess fabric back behind your loom. I cut out a piece of cardboard that pops into the back of my piece and holds everything into place. If you have a better idea, go for it (and then tell me how to do it)!
Tips
- • Pick out a nice-looking hoop for this project. It’s going to become the frame.
- • When working on lots of ×’s close to each other, try to work in a consistent direction and manner so they look nice & pretty. For example, the whale itself is a large block of work, so I worked in columns doing the bottom line ( / ) of my ×’s all the way up my column, then top line ( \ ) of my ×’s working back down each column. You can see where I messed up my consistency on the tulips in the photo above. Don’t tell anyone.
- • As you work on more sections and swap colors more often, you’ll have lots of little thread tails likely getting in your way. I use a piece of masking tape, pictured below, to temporarily hold them out of the way while I work.
- • This gauge of stitching actually calls for thinner floss than the skein you find as-is at the store. If you prefer to do it properly, you’ll need to separate your floss into strands that are just two threads wide. If you don’t really care about that (like I certainly didn’t) then just go for it, whole-floss!
And at last, the pattern:
Online resources:
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Post by Cambria Griffith, our Indirect Channel Marketing Manager. Cambria is a Certified Cicerone® and has been writing about craft beer online since 2009 (both for fun and for dollar bills). Otherwise, she’s outside skating or playing with other people’s doggies. |
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