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Cross Stitch embroidery with alignment There is a time in the life of any owner of an embroidery/sewing and embroidery machine when they come across a design too big to fit the hoop. Such a design should be split and embroidered by piecemeal in such a way that its separate fragments combine into a whole. This tutorial will show you how to align and embroider counted cross stitch patterns with the help of the alignment stitch. Design alignment. Materials Fabric Upper thread Underthread Tearaway adhesive stabilizer Cross stitch machine embroidery design from our store Pins Nota bene. Unfortunately, we do not have this particular design. But you can buy other ones from our store. You may use the "cross stitch" tag as a guide. Design alignment. The working process Prepare your fabric for the embroidery by gluing the tearaway adhesive stabilizer to the wrong side. Hoop the fabric and add the alignment marks with the help of the template. Add vertical and horizontal lines. You’ll also need to draw the alignment line. Use the design printout as your guide. Or, look at the image on the screen and use the plastic template. If you want to embroider your own cross stitch design but aren’t familiar with the embroidery software, please read these articles. Embroider the first part of the design and change color in accordance with the color chart. Please remember that cross stitch embroidery takes a long time so you’ll need to be patient. This design was cut along a straight line. If you’ve decided to cut your design in your own fashion, put the biggest part in the first place in the sewing order and make the others a few cm smaller than the hoop. This will give you the room for alignment. The alignment stitch should be of the same color as the last color in your chart. Or, you can use the color that blends with the fabric–in that way you won’t need to rip the stitch out. Having embroidered the first part of the design, unhoop the fabric. What you need to do is to iron out the hoop burn. Do not slide the iron but press and lift it instead. Otherwise, the fabric will get warped and it will be impossible to make an alignment. Hoop the fabric along a straight line. Use the alignment stitch as your guide. The second alignment stitch is not obligatory. Use the option of moving by stitches. When aligning the cross stitch pattern it is crucial that its parts should match together with the utmost precision. The alignment should be accurate to the stitch! If the alignment lines do not match together, you’ll need to rehoop and do it all over again. Having correctly aligned the parts, embroider the rest of the design. As a result, the two parts of your design will correspond to the cross. Remove the jump stitches every time you change the thread color. Otherwise, they will be covered by the stitches that come next, and that will make them difficult to remove. When the embroidery is finished, iron it on something soft. Do not iron the front side of the embroidery and do not use the steam boost. Especially if you've used rayon threads! Design alignment is ready! Original text by Irina Lisitsa