Types of Cross Stitch Fabric
There are two main types of fabric used for cross stitch, aida fabric and evenweave fabric.
Aida fabric is 100% evenly woven cotton, groups of threads are woven together to form squares with easily visible holes where the threads cross each other, making it easy to count accurately.
Aida fabric comes in various counts ranging from 6 to 18 count and an array of colours.
Fabric count is measured in holes per inch or HPI, the smaller the count, the less holes per inch, the bigger the stitch.
Evenweave fabric is any fabric where the warp and weft threads are the same count, producing even squares, in needlework we use Evenweave to describe fabric woven with a single thread and made from cotton or a cotton mix. It is mostly worked over two threads, this means that one square on your chart equates to a square of nine holes on your fabric.
An easy way to visualise this is to imagine the small holes on the evenweave fabric as a noughts and crosses board of nine squares, you start by bringing your needle up in the bottom left hand corner, miss out the middle square and back down through the top right hand square, back up through the bottom right hand corner and down through the top left, thus creating a cross stitch over two threads.
Evenweave can also be worked over one thread for very fine designs.
Happy stitching,
Danielle