finishing cross-stitched bookmarks

When the time came to finish my cross stitched bookmarks, gluing felt to the back just didn't seem finished enough...

Here's the technique I came up with.

With a rotary cutter and ruler, trim the finished piecee 1/2" larger than the stitched area.



Cut a piece of quilting cotton slightly wider and longer than the stitched area. Fold under the short ends and press.



Layer the cotton on top of your stitched piece, wrong sides together. Fold the long edges of the cross stitch fabric 1/4" over the raw edges of the cotton. Press. The short edges will be fringed later.



With the stitched side facing up, use your sewing machine and matching thread to sew around the whole rectangle, two squares outside of the stitched area. Fringe the short edges.

books and books and bookmarks!

The copy of Photo Snap Shot I reserved from the library is in. I've finished reading it on my Kindle already, which I take as a sign that I Really Really Did Need To Buy That Book. As soon as I was done with that, I finished Ink, Red, Dead too, and now I'm debating whether to buy another of the short stories or read one of the 300 or so other books I've got on my Kindle. Or I could get back to cleaning out my sewing room. I really should do that.

The bookmarks are finished. The stitching has been done for a week or so, but I was stressing about finishing them. Finishing isn't one of my favorite things, maybe because it's the last chance to get everything just perfect.

One of the pattern books I'm working from says to glue a piece of felt on the back and fringe the four sides. There's too much stitching here to just glue a piece of felt on the back. I briefly thought of using scrapbooking paper, but let myself get talked out of that idea. And I'm very grateful to the stitchers who encouraged me to do better.

I love the way mine came out. Mine are backed with quilting cotton. The long edges are turned back and machine stitched and the short edges are fringed. I wanted to make a tutorial, but it was night and the light over the table kept reflecting off of my ruler. I've still got two more to finish, and more stitching planned, so I'll try to take better pictures next time around.

The pattern for the bookmark on the left is in Bookmarks Galore and the one on the right is from Hold That Thought. I'm using floss from a bargain pack I bought at Joann's, so my colors don't match the original pattern.



I'm linking this post to Quilting by the River.