My Current Cross Stitch Routine

In this episode, I share my current cross stitch routine. I’m not sharing when exactly I cross stitch but more about what projects I stitch and when. You can listen to the episode below or keep scrolling to read the blog post.

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I sort of naturally fell into this routine but it has been working well for me these past few months and the start of a new season is the perfect time to see if you need a routine for your hobby or if you need to update your current routine.

For this post I am writing about what I cross stitch on a loose basis. It’s not so much that I stitch at exact times every single day. I go with the flow a lot (especially over the Summer) but there is a simple routine woven in.

Weekly stitching

So firstly I make sure I organise all of my projects and pick my top 3-5 for that season. I go through this process on episode 77 – how to organise your wip projects if you want a refresh.

For my new routine, I have been stitching one project per week Monday – Friday. I started doing this because the projects I am stitching right now use a lot of different colours and some of those colours were needed across multiple projects. I’m not so organised that I split the thread up; I usually use the same bobbin. So to avoid having to look for the colour I needed every time I picked a project up I started working on just one so all of the colours can go in that bag. Then the week after I can transfer the colours over.

I have been doing Monday – Friday because I like to keep the weekends as fun, stitch-whatever-I feel-like days.

The past couple of months I have been stitching the Autumn Wreath SAL, the Storybook SAL and two new small patterns. For one week Monday – Friday I stitch the Autumn Wreath. The next Monday-Friday I stitch the Storybook SAL for 5 days. And the smaller projects I stitch on the weekends.

I am about to start a new project and I can just slip it into the rotation easily without wondering when I’m going to get to work on it. I will work on each project for 5 days every three weeks.

I have been enjoying this routine a lot. I love variety in my stitching so five days on the same project isn’t too long that I’m getting bored. But it’s also long enough to really get stuck in and make a lot of progress on a project.

Small changes to the routine

Now this routine can be tricky if you’re currently in a weekly SAL, but you can shift it a little. Let’s say for example you are currently taking part in the Autumn SAL and you also have two other projects you are working on. You could do Monday – Thursday on one of your other projects (one project one week, the other the week after), Thursday – Saturday on the Autumn SAL and Sunday is free stitching day to stitch whatever you want.

Or if you have 4 projects you can split one project a week each month. You might not stitch exactly on track for SALs but having 7 full days to catch up might work as well as giving you a chance to work on other projects/SALs.

I have tried stitching a different project every couple of days, but I think with larger projects you make much slower progress doing it this way. And I am stitching large projects more and more lately. You really need some solid time to just focus on that one design to get a lot done.

So this is just my routine right now while I’m stitching big designs. It will probably change again in a few months but it’s working and I’m enjoying it so it’s staying put for now.

I think it’s important to assess and look at what we’re doing to see if it’s right for the season we are in. I hope this episode is the prompt you need to look and see if there are any changes you need to make to your stitching routine to make sure you are taking time for yourself and making the progress you want to on your designs.

Next episode I will be sharing how to set up more of a structured routine and how to find the best times to stitch for your particular lifestyle.

My Current Cross Stitch Routine | Episode 110

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