I love the idea of stitching greeting cards, or really making any kinds of greeting cards to send to people. Or maybe sending cards in general. Whatever.
This “Hello Pumpkin” chart from Gathered would be a perfect one to stitch up as a greeting card, and it’s actually shown in the pattern being used in that way.
This project was designed by Jenny Van De Wiele for The World of Cross Stitching magazine and is being offered as a free pattern. There’s actually a whole set of these little harvest time greetings, and you can buy a digital copy of the magazine if you want to stitch any of the others.
This one is 46 by 45 stitches, and it uses 10 colors. You could make the pumpkins any colors you like or make them in two different colors instead of four if you want to use fewer colors.
On 14 count fabric or 28 count evenweave it measures 3.25 inches square, or about 8.5 cm. So it’s perfect for mounting onto a little card or just putting into a small frame. It would easily fit in a 4-inch hoop or a little frame of your choosing and would be cute in a display of pumpkins (handcrafted, real or otherwise).
There are a couple of different ways that you can mount a piece of cross stitch onto a greeting card. If your card has a hole (or you can cute out a hole to fit) then you can easily tape the cross stitch to the inside of the card, using the tape to cover up the raw edges of the cross stitch fabric.
This image shows the cross stitch on the outside of the card, but it doesn’t have instructions for how to do that. I’m inclined to think you’d want to use a spray adhesive to try to hold down every strand of the fabric, but you could also use decorative tape on the outside or finish the edges of your design with a bit of fabric or ribbon to keep it from fraying.
You can grab this free pattern from Gathered, and check out their digital editions if you want more of the patterns.
[Photo: Gathered]
