Counted-stitch embroidery is back in fashion!
With its naive designs, counted stitch can be used to decorate walls as well as objects: comforters, towels, tea towels, book covers, lampshades and clothing - there's no shortage of decorative ideas!
Counted stitch
Counted stitch is cross-stitch embroidery on unpainted canvas. To reproduce a diagram, you need to count the stitches.
Toknow! In the counted-stitch family: Hardanger embroidery
Hardanger embroidery is a traditional Norwegian embroidery technique (from the Hardanger region) that is just beginning to make a name for itself. It consists of counted-stitch embroidery and cut-out motifs using white thread on a white cotton or linen weft. Its beauty transcends borders, and this embroidery technique is increasingly being used with modern thread and weft colors. The ideal canvas for Hardanger embroidery is double warp and double weft. The motifs are based on embroidered cobblestones and days, so the designs are necessarily very geometric in appearance.

Cross-stitch: on what canvases?
Cross-stitch is usually done on Aïda canvas. There are different weft sizes: the smaller the weft, the smaller the crosses and the finer the result, but the difficulty of embroidering also increases...
For variety, use colored Aïda fabrics, or bleached or natural (beige) linen.
When choosing a canvas, your haberdasher will ask you "what size? In fact, the size of the little crosses you're going to embroider depends on the nature of the fabric chosen, expressed in stitches per cm: the higher the number of stitches per cm, the finer the fabric.
For Aïda

Number of stitches/cm
4,5	For beginners

5,

5	For amateurs

7	For fine embroidery

9	For experienced embroiderers

Stamen is a very regular fabric that allows you to create beautiful embroideries. 1-thread cheesecloth is equivalent to 10 stitches/cm (i.e. very fine). 2-thread cheesecloth is equivalent to 5 stitches/cm.
Lugana fabric This is a very regular fabric (10 threads/cm), ideal for starting to embroider on one thread.

Replace the fabric with "painting fabric" (used by painters to create their canvases): with its slightly more linen effect and 7 stitches per millimeter, it is very well screened and allows you to vary the backgrounds of your projects

. What's more,

it's even less expensive (but can only be washed dry).

Counted cross-stitch embroidery onany fabric
in haberdashery or specialized embroidery stores, you can buy a "thread-pulling" fabric (usually 7 stitches/cm), which you attach with pins to the fabric to be embroidered (garment, cushion, lampshade, etc.). The squared surface of this fabric allows you to cross-stitch the diagram of your choice. Once the embroidery is complete, simply pull the threads one by one: the cross-stitch pattern is perfect!