Hot Cocoa Cross Stitch Freebie

One of my favorite things is finding a really cute cross stitch freebie that can be made in just a few days. This pattern, from the Tiny Modernist, was something that I stumbled upon on Pinterest. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. And then, over at The Colorful Options Challenge blog, I noticed that this would fit perfectly. I made this piece without challenge in mind. 

However, before I say more, I have to confess that this was very difficult to stitch for two reasons. First of all, the pattern is in black-and-white with different symbols rather than colors. In order to make it a little bit easier to stitch, I did do some screenshots and used my markup feature on my iPad to create the snowflake as a starting point. You can see that picture below.

The other thing that made this quite difficult to stitch was that it is on black fabric. For those of you who have not used black fabric, it is difficult to find the holes, especially when you’re going in the back of the piece. I did use my iPad as a light in the back, which did illuminate the holes, but the problem with that is that once your hand goes over the hole in the back, the light no longer shines through. You have to hold your needle in just the right way in order to make that technique effective.

But before you get discouraged, I want to say that other than those two things, this is a really easy and fun piece to stitch. It can certainly be stitched on a white or medium colored fabric as well. The only thing you may need to do would be to backstitch the whipped cream at the top so that stands out more if you use a light colored fabric. And if you use the markup technique, it makes it a lot easier.

If you’re looking for some really cute cross stitch patterns, be sure to check out the Tiny Modernist’s Freebie Page HERE. 

And for the link to this specific pattern you can click HERE.

This was very easy to frame as well. One thing that I do for my smaller pieces is to lay my desktop monitor down on the desk, and then place my work on top of it. It makes placing the cross stitched piece very easy if you don’t have a light box. Here’s a picture of that below.

When stitched on 14 count Ada, the finished piece fits perfectly in a 6“ x 6“ frame. I just happen to have a set of four different 8“ x 8“ frames that I bought from Amazon. They came with 6“ x 6“ mats, so this worked out perfectly.

These are the frames I bought HERE.

The map board that I use also came from Amazon and I’ve been pretty happy with it. It’s a large pack, but it’s nice to always have it on hand when I finish a project. You can find that HERE. It’s really been a lifesaver having these whenever I need them.

Thanks so much for stopping by and feel free to drop me a comment. I’d love to know what you were ex experience is on stitching on dark color fabrics. Maybe I won’t feel so bad!