Let’s say for argument’s sake you’re a bit of a dab hand at cross stitch but you’re a bit sick of mounting and framing everything you make. Or you’ve run out of places to put or hang them and so have all of the friends to whom you’d normally gift your work. Yet you’re not yet ready to learn something new and your compulsions won’t allow you to just stop crafting. What to do?

(I suppose I could’ve just drop the whole “for argument’s sake” bit. I just described myself. But you probably already knew that.)

Well, how about embellishing something like a bit of clothing? It’s not that much more difficult than traditional cross stitch. It looks pretty danged nice too, particularly if you’re doing two-dimensional pixel art like myself.

Now, you can cross stitch on any old fabric you want if you have a mind to do it. You can even stitch on a piece of clothing freehand if you like. Some folks can make nice straight stitches this way. I can’t, so I use something called waste canvas. Waste canvas is essentially a very loose piece of evenweave fabric. It can be used as a guide and then removed once the stitch is complete.

Waste canvas can be used to guide cross stitch on non-evenweave fabrics such as clothing.

In this tutorial I’ll be working with another baby Onesie™. I’ll be stitching upon it the pink Shyguy from Super Mario Bros. 2. This guide presupposes that you are already familiar with cross stitch and have already found your image and selected your floss.

(By the way, I’m using DMC colors 310, 3806, and B5200 for this particular character.)

Cut the waste canvas to a suitable size for your chosen image.

To prepare the waste canvas I’m going to cut it into fourths. This is a larger piece of canvas than I really need for a 15×16 sprite but I want to put it into a hoop to maintain tension and the smallest hoop I own is 4 inches in diameter.

Identify the place you'd like the cross stitched design to be and lay the bottom part of the hoop beneath it.

Center the waste canvas above your hoop.

Next I’ll need to find out where I’d like this Shyguy to go. Since I’m using a baby Onesie™ I like to put the stitch as close to the middle as possible. Rather than measure anything I just put the bottom part of my hoop under the front of the clothing.

Now I’ll center the piece of waste canvas I cut earlier over the fabric as best I can. I use the dark blue threads to gauge the center of the canvas as well as determine if it’s straight. Because the piece is big enough to cover the hoop and then some I don’t need to worry overly about centering it.

Sandwich the waste canvas between the fabric and the hoop.

Try to keep a fair amount of tension in your clothing, but don't overdo it.

As stiff as the waste canvas is, and as thick as it and the Onesie™ fabric are together this step can be difficult. I take the top part of the hoop and sandwich the waste canvas between the front of the clothing and the hoop. I need to try and keep the Onesie™ fabric taut without stretching it too badly.

Now I just need to fully seat the hoop and tighten it. I’m ready to start stitching. I’ll trust that you don’t need any instructions on this part. If so, a quick search with your favorite search engine should produce good results. I posted a tutorial a while back but I’m not going to link it now because I just know the formatting has been buggered up by careless redesigns.

I've found it's easiest to fold the fabric over so I can have greater access to the back.

I’m going to want to get access to the back of the clothing, so I flip the Onesie™ over and secure it on the top of the hoop. Otherwise I’d have a hard time maneuvering the needle about.

Using the waste canvas as a guide, cross stitch your design onto the fabric.

Remove the hoop.

With the cross stitch completed I’m ready to remove my waste canvas. Taking off the hoop I’m left with quite a bit of excess waste canvas. I’m going to want to get rid of this as it’ll make the next steps needlessly difficult.

Trim the excess waste canvas.

Using a pair of scissors—it doesn’t really matter what type—I’ll trim the waste canvas down as small as I can. I want to leave enough to grab onto though. Just a lazy circle around the finished cross stitch will do fine.

One direction at a time, pull the threads from the waste canvas.

Now it’s time to start removing the waste canvas threads. I’ve found a clean pair of needlenose pliers to be quite useful for this step. It also helps to dampen the cross stitch. This loosens the fibers and allows the waste canvas threads to slip out with less effort. Apply a moistened wash cloth to the front of the stitch. You don’t want it soaking, you just want it damp.

Start pulling out thread from one direction at a time. If your cross stitch is longer on one side than the other start with the shortest side—if it’s taller than it is wide start with the horizontal threads. Since the Shyguy is almost a square I’ve just picked the vertical threads.

Remove the waste canvas threads that remain.

The vertical threads removed, I can now pull out the horizontal threads. This is a far cry easier than the first round of thread removal. I’m even able to pull out two at a time a couple of times. Still, it pays to be gentle. I don’t want to mess up my hard work.

You're done! Go find a baby to stick it on.

And I’m finished! The cross stitch is applied to the Onesie™1 and the waste canvas is removed. I don’t have any scratchy interfacing to irritate baby’s sensitive skin. I’d probably still recommend hand washing this. I haven’t tried to machine wash them. It might work just fine, but I’d be hesitant to try.

1 This ™ bit is getting more than a little tiresome and almost certainly not necessary, but once I found out that they are ™ by Gerber I just couldn’t stop.