How Gridding Your Aida Fabric Perfects Cross Stitching

When it comes to cross stitching, I always found that I would lose count when trying to count the correct amount of boxes on the aida fabric. I would almost always lose track, make an error in my piece, and then inevitably get frustrated and give up on the piece. Eventually though, I discovered gridding. If you’ve never gridded your aida before, it’s life changing!

Essentially, before you start stitching your pattern, you use a fabric marker and sketch out the grid from your pattern onto your fabric. Instead of counting along 10s of rows, you just need to count within one specific 10×10 box.

In order to demonstrate gridding, I decided to create a free butterfly pattern! You can download the pattern at the end of this post.

Why should I grid?

1. While you may not find gridding necessary for small patterns, it’s a great option for full coverage patterns where multiple pages of a pattern are involved. It makes it much easier to keep track of your progress as you stitch your pattern.
2. I for one, prefer to embroider all of my stitches for each colour of thread at a time. When I use gridding, it makes it extremely easy to jump from one section to another when the same colour of thread is involved
3. If you grid your piece of fabric before starting your stitching, you can be certain that your full pattern will fit your piece of fabric and that you’ll have enough of a border left over for framing your finished piece.

Supplies List

• Aida fabric
• Water or Heat Soluble Pen
• Ruler or something else with a hard edge
• Your cross stitch pattern. You can find the free butterfly pattern at the end of this post.

Step 1

After you’ve cut and ironed your piece of aida fabric, fold your piece of fabric into quarters and mark the centre point with your fabric marker.

Step 2

Review your pattern. Typically you’ll see two intersecting red lines that shows the centre point of your pattern. The dot that you made on your fabric will match up with the centre point on your pattern.

Using the butterfly pattern as a reference, you can see that the centre point of this pattern is in the middle of a 10×10 box. Due to this, find the centre point on you fabric and count along 5 boxes and draw a line with your ruler and a fabric marker to create a straight line. Next, count 5 boxes from the other side of the dot and draw another line.

Now, we’re going to do the same thing on all 4 sides of the 10×10 box.

Step 3

Since the butterfly pattern is 30×50, we’re going to count 10 more boxes to the left and create an additional line. Count 10 more boxes to the left and create a line. From there, find your line on the right hand side and count 10 boxes to the right. Do this one more time, now you’ve drawn all 6 of your lines for the width of your pattern.

Step 4

Turn your piece of fabric 90 degrees to the right. We’re going to find the line 5 boxes from the centre point and count 10 boxes towards the top of the fabric. Next, navigate to the lowest line and count 10 boxes down and draw a line. You should have 4 total lines across the height of your fabric.

Step 5

At this point, it’s just a matter of connecting your lines into a neat grid. Use your ruler in order to accomplish this step. You should now have a 3×5 set of 10×10 boxes.

Step 6

Finally, reorient your fabric to match the pattern. On the top left hand corner, use your fabric marker to write 0. Then move along the right hand dividing lines and write 10, 20, 30, 40, & 50 to match the pattern. Next, along the left hand side of the your fabric number the diving lines as 10, 20, & 30.

Numbering your lines isn’t a requirement, but I find it quite helpful for large pieces to quickly find the box I need when stitching a pattern.

Step 7

Finally, it’s time to start stitching! You can start anywhere you like. I tend to pick a colour and create all of the cross stitches for that one colour, then move onto the next. Others will go box by box or page by page of their pattern. You may even find that by gridding your fabric, you’ll need to look at your pattern less than usual. Just do what works best for you.

Free Pattern

No purchase is necessary to download the pattern! Simply add the listing to your cart and checkout. My website won’t ask for any payment details. The pattern will be delivered straight to your inbox. You can find even more patterns available in my online store.

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