DIY Cross Stitch Ornaments

Finished ornament hung with a simple ribbon.

I made this simple cross stitch ornament for a last minute gift class at the shop. The pattern is easy enough for a beginner and should take less than two hours to complete regardless of skill level so let's get started.

You will need the following:

14ct Aida cloth
1 yard embroidery floss
cross stitch needle
3" embroidery hoop
a small scrap of coordinating fabric
sewing needle
sewing thread
scraps of paperboard (a cereal box will do)
piece of ribbon (or hook for hanging)
iron (optional)

Once you have all of your supplies you can begin by cross stitching the chart below. You can either do this in the 3" hoop you are going to hang it in or you can use a larger hoop and move it into the 3" one when you are finished. If you are new to cross stitch I suggest you start with this tutorial by Becky Stern, she does a terrific job of explaining everything, far better than I could.

A printable pdf of this chart can be found here.

Once your project is stitched and in the frame you will want to sew a running stitch around the outside perimeter of the Aida cloth and pull tight to gather the excess material in the center of the hoop. If you have a large amount of excess Aida cloth you will want to trim it so that no more than an inch hangs over the edge before doing your running stitch.

Next you want to cut a 3 1/4" circle out of paperboard and a 5" circle out of your scrap fabric. Repeat the perimeter running stitch from above to encase the paperboard in the fabric.

Backsides of both the paperboard backing and the hoop.

At this point you can choose to iron the backs of both objects to make the fabric lay flat, this is totally personal preference. Once your two backs are ready to go, apply your favorite fabric glue to the outside perimeter, put the two wrong sides together, and weight with a flat heavy object, I used a heavy book, until dry. Once dry, add a ribbon or hook and it is ready to hang on your tree.

Since I am posting less than a week before Christmas and you might not get to this in 2015, I went ahead and made a 2016 version of this ornament, that chart can be found here.