Cross-Stitch Mini Quilt Tutorial

Today I am sharing a tutorial for the fusion of my two favorite crafty hobbies: quilting and cross-stitch!

The popular way to display cross-stitch pieces is to put them up in hoops, but as a quilter I like to have all my loose ends tied up and hidden away forever. I also have a system for displaying mini quilts in my house already and it's easier to switch out the cross-stitch pieces when they are actually tiny quilts.

This tutorial is generalized so that it can be used with any size cross-stitch piece.  It also gives plenty of options for customizing your mini quilt for the perfect finish.  Please read through the entire tutorial once before beginning.

Supply List

• A finished cross-stitch piece.  This method of finishing works best with smaller pieces (less than 7x7), unless you are planning on putting quilting lines through the cross-stitch part.  I've done this with larger pieces and they end up sagging in the middle until I add extra reinforcement.
• A piece of SF101 (or similar) interfacing roughly two inches larger in both dimensions than your finished cross-stitch piece.
• Fabric to make the border(s).  Amount will vary depending on the size of the piece and number of borders you want to make.
• Folded Corners Mini Ruler (optional).
• Backing fabric and batting scrap.  Each of these should be roughly two inches larger in both dimensions than your finished cross-stitch piece with the borders on.  Do not cut these pieces until after the borders have been added onto the cross-stitch piece.
• Crochet hook (or similar) for turning.
• Basting pins (straight or safety will work).
• Needle for hand sewing.

Prepping the Piece

Iron your cross-stitch piece flat, being careful not to stretch it out of shape.  Once you are happy with how the front of the piece looks, center the interfacing on the back and iron it in place.

Trim the interfaced cross-stitch piece a half inch away from the stitching on each side.

Add Borders

Now it's time to dress up your piece!  Because most of the pieces I stitch were designed to go into a round frame, I like to add triangle corners to "round off" the design, but that's just a personal preference.  Here are some of the different ways that I have finished cross-stitch mini quilts in the past:

Option 1: Triangle corners, double border. (Pattern: Caterpillar Cross Stitch Sub Box)

Option 2: Triangle corners, single border. (Pattern: Cross Stitch in the Forest book)

Option 3: Double border. (Pattern: Cross Stitch in the Forest book)

Option 4: Single border. (Pattern: The Geeky Stitching Co)

There are no rules as to how many borders you can add or how wide to make each one.  Each border will be quilted individually so there is no worry about them sagging.  I do not recommend going border-free because it is difficult to ladder-stitch the opening closed through the aida, but it is possible.

For making triangle corners, I love my folded corners mini ruler (not an affiliate link, I just use it all the time and love it!).  This ruler lets me do triangle corners on everything without having to line up squares.  I like to oversize things and then trim them down and this lets me do that easily.  For the trick-or-treat mini featured here, I trimmed my corners so that they would finish at 1.75", then cut two 2.5" squares diagonally to make four triangles and sewed them on.  Press and trim to complete.

If you don't have this ruler, you can also cut four squares, draw a diagonal line on the back of each, and then sew one to each corner.  Trim and press to complete the corners.  For this piece, I would have used 1.75" squares if I had been using this method.

For the borders themselves, remember that the final border will lose about 3/8" when turning.  For most of my pieces, the inner border (if I have two) measures 0.5" finished and the outer border measures between 1.5" and 2.5".  In this case, I cut the black border at 1" (unfinished) and the orange border at 2.25" (unfinished).  Sew the border on as desired.

Prepare the Back

Cut the backing fabric so that it is at least one inch larger than the bordered cross-stitch piece in each direction.  Here mine has more than that in height because that's how tall the piece of fabric was initially.  Then place the backing fabric on a piece of batting and quilt as desired.  I like to do a simple meander because it's fast and no one will ever see it.

Create the Mini Quilt

Place the cross-stitch piece face down on the quilted back, and pin securely.  I use straight pins for this because it's faster than safety pins.  Pin in the border area, but far enough away from the edge that you can leave them in while stitching around.  Stitch around the edge of the piece, leaving a three inch hole for turning.  After stitching, remove the pins and trim off the excess backing fabric, then clip the corners.

Turn the piece right-side out, using the crochet hook to push the corners out completely.  Iron the piece flat, taking care to fold the edges of the hole under, then ladder stitch the opening closed.  This step only takes a few minutes and makes the finished mini look more polished.

Top stitch around the edge of the mini quilt, leaving long tails at the start and finish of your stitch so they can be pulled through to the back and buried.  It is easier to match the stitching if you start in the middle of one of the sides instead of at one of the corners.  Then, add a line of stitching between each of the borders.  Finally, stitch on the diagonal of each of the triangle corners if you added those.  That is enough quilting to hold the piece together, but you can add decorative stitching to the corners or the borders as well!

You can see in my piece, I top stitched around the outer edge, then did a second line on either side of the black border, and finished with a decorative stitch in each of the green corners.

Closing Remarks

And that's all it takes to make a small cross-stitch piece into a fun mini quilt!  Of course, you could also layer and quilt your piece traditionally and then add a binding, but I like this method because it's faster and tiny bindings can be a pain.  I've also stuffed my mini quilt before ladder stitching the opening closed to make a tiny pillow instead of a flat piece, which works wonderfully!  Just make sure the border is wide enough that your entire design will be on the front after stuffing and not hidden by the curve of the pillow.  Happy stitching and please feel free to share with me if you make a cross-stitch mini quilt using this tutorial!