How to mount Cross stitch onto a canvas

Still procrastinating about packing (the moving truck arrives in 3 days!) so I thought I would frame up my cross stitch before it gets buried in a box. Here is what I did...

These are all my bits ready to go. I have chosen a canvas with a nice thick edge and have my trusty staple gun - I love using this!

I decided to put a bit of padding behind the cross stitch as the fabric I stitched on is quite thin. I think they call this Pellum (please correct me if I am wrong) and it is used in quilting. I have cut it to the same size as the canvas.

After taking the plastic wrap off the canvas(!) I used fabric glue to stick the padding on. Just enough to secure it place really.

Then I place the cross stitch of the canvas and basically eyeballed the correct position. The I flipped it over very carefully and placed a staple on either side.

Then I flipped it back over and made sure it was still in the right spot, flipped it back and stapled at top and bottom. I then repeated this process of adding a staple and flipping it back to ensure it stayed where I wanted it. I pulled the fabric tightish as I stapled but not too tight.

I would have added more photos of this process but my stapler was spitting out 2 staples at a time and it didn't look so pretty. But hey its at the back so nobody will see it!

Then I tucked in the fabric to make neatish corners. At this point I thought it was all looking a bit to white so decided to jazz it up with some lovely grosgrain polka dot ribbon.

I measured around to make sure I had enough to overlap slightly.

I backed the ribbon with double sided tape....

I peeled back a little and then just floded the end of the ribbon over. Then starting a the bottom left corner of the canvas I peeled and stuck as I went around. It is much easier to peel as you go rather than peel all the tape of and then stick as it can get a little messy!

At the end I tucked the end of the ribbon under the ribbon where I had started - does that make sense?

I had a bit of ribbon left over so I decided to make a flat bow and add it to the top!

As you can tell from this photo I should have spent a bit more time ironing the finished piece before I started mounting it - oops.

You can find the pdf pattern to stitch these 9 Russian dolls in my etsy store.

Happy stitching!

Kim xxx