Cross-stitch Christmas Cover | Making Christmas Tutorial {Upcycling}

Welcome to the Making Christmas blog hop! I hope you have made much more progress with your Making Christmas list! Today I will show you some of my home decorations. I am going for a chocolate brown and tartan theme this year - no I did not make it easy on myself, but it means you become much more creative suddenly!

Which leads me on nicely to today's tutorial - a knitted jumper turned into a cross-stitched fancy Christmas cushion. 

1. Get yourself a cheap (second-hand?) knitted jumper - with quite distinct stitches (so you can easily count the stitches - it is in fact even easier to have a jumper with some interesting stitch for ease of reference - you will see later). 

2. Measure the cushion - and 'trace' (with masking tape) the cushion.

3. Cut out the top cushion cover and (if you want to make it easier and more even - but it is a really time consuming task) make a grid, much like a cross-stitching fabric. 

 4. Start cross-stitching

I used a thread of cotton yarn and 4 threads of Rowan Kidsilk Aura (what I had in my stash)

I drafted my pattern from a  picture I found on Pinterest - it is quite an easy pattern (also not too big so it can fit nicely in the middle of the cushion cover). I also had a Christmas tree pattern in mind but it was too long for this cushion cover. 

5. Get rid of the grid (be careful of not undoing all your beautiful cross-stitching work), and there you have it a handmade cross-stitched cushion cover - made from a jumper.

I also made a second one. It was so much easier with the knitting fabric as I had a reference all the way through (it took a third of the time to make it, even though it is much more cross-stitched). I tried in this one to make the most of the brown against the white, it works pretty well. You can easily draft the pattern from my pictures - let me know if you have problems. 

In case you wonder about the back, to continue to chic winter theme, I got some felt fabric from John Lewis and grosgrain ribbon - all matching. Just a tip for the sewing: sew felt side on top. I used the sew mama sew tutorial as per usual - it works great with ribbon too!

And here we are - styled with Latte (one of my knitted blankets).

So who is up for making one (or two, or more) this Christmas? For an even easier version you could buy a fair isle jumper and just make a cushion cover out of it (no cross stitching unless you want to emboss some of the pattern) - it will look great too! Let me know if you are making one, I would love to see your version!

Apart from that, I have nearly made nothing of my list - but there is still time... and evenings to knit, sew and crochet! So now is your turn, link up your updates on your list!