Beach Gnome Cross Stitch Pattern

I don’t know if it’s possible to get enough gnomes in any crafting genre. We love gnomes in knitting and crochet, too, and gnomes are also fun to cross stitch. They’re an easy starting point for just about any holiday themed project, from Christmas to St. Patrick’s Day and beyond.

Or, in this case, summer.

The beach gnome cross stitch pattern from Craft with Cartwright answers the question of what gnomes do on vacation. They go to the beach and rest on the sand under an umbrella, just like I wish I was doing right now.

The pattern is available for free when you sign up for updates, which gives you access to a ton of free patterns for cross stitch.

In addition to this gnome cross stitch pattern, Ruth has a whole library of free gnome cross stitch patterns, including gnomes for each month and designs for Christmas, Halloween, Easter and St. Patrick’s Day. Because she’s British you’ll also find a St. David’s Day gnome and a Burns Night gnome, among other fun projects. You can really stitch up a gnome or several for any occasion!

If you need even more gnome cross stitch patterns to choose from, I’ve got you covered. I love this little collection of Christmas gnomes, and there’s a gnome pattern in this roundup of Fourth of July cross stitch patterns. I also have a whole collection of fall themed gnome cross-stitch patterns, and a fun set of little gnomes dressed up in their Halloween costumes, if you’re already thinking ahead to the next season. It will be here before we know it, after all!

Whether you stitch up a single gnome project or a full set, make them for wall hangings, greeting cards or other projects, gnomes are lots of fun to stitch and I hope you’ll have a good time with this one!

[Photo: Craft with Cartwright]

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I have not done a lot of big cross stitch projects, but sometimes even with small projects it can be hard to decide exactly where to begin and how to work through the chart if you’re working with multiple colors. The general categories for the possible methods are known as cross country and parking.

Cross country means that you’re working one color at a time, moving around the chart (or the section of the chart you’re working on) until you’re done with that color. Parking means you’re working in a smaller section and doing all the colors in that area, “parking” the threads by leaving them attached to the canvas but out of the way while you finish each section.

Royal Rows is a specific way of parking named by Alison Royal, which is explored in detail on a post on Stitching Daily.

The idea is that you’re working one “tower” of stitches at a time (she uses a section of 10 stitches across by 20 down, but you can do whatever makes sense to you). You work all the stitches of a color at a time, starting at the top left and working your way down. When you’re done with a color you can park it where needed in the section below your current tower (known as the dungeon) or in the “east tower,” which is the section to the right.

There’s also a specific way of dealing with thread ends when you’re done with a color. This is a super simplified version (head to the blog post at Stitching Daily to get all the details) but the basic idea is that you’re working from left to right and top to bottom across the work, parking the threads in the next section when you’re done with them and systematically choosing which color to work with next.

The whole idea of parking is kind of overwhelming to me though I will admit that it makes a lot of sense. I guess I need to try it on a smallish big project and see how it goes. Do you use the parking method of cross stitch? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Stitching Daily]

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