Design Works Crafts, ABC Fun Counted Cross Stitch Kit

This was such a fun project. I stitched it so fast and it came out better than the picture shows.

This is a lovely design. But…. this is the first time I have run out of floss when making a project - and I am only 1/2 way through. Uncertain why the company insists on being so stingy with what should be an expectation in the kit. I ignored the comments about the lack of floss thinking the reviewers may not understand how to conserve thread. Don’t! You will be either buying more or waiting for the company to send more. I requested additional thread from their site but since you do not hear back from them, it is uncertain when or how it will be received.

Love the cross stitch alphabet birth announcement. Directions clear, floss good quality.

I have bought many, many cross stitch projects in my life but I have never bought one that did not give you enough thread to complete the design, until now. With this kit, I ran out of more than one color before I finished. And, the DMC numbers for the threads did not match the colors that ran out. Very frustrating. If you really like the design and want to attempt it, I suggest discarding their threads and using DMC threads so the colors will be consistent throughout.

I’ve read the reviews and most are saying they ran out of a bunch of colors. The only color I ran out of was Dark Green, because it was listed as an outline color, when the color should have been listed as standard green. If it had said the correct color on the pattern, I would not have run out of any colors. You do have to be very economical with how you use each color, though, or you will run out. I agree with other reviews that previous experience is necessary for this pattern. Because the whole pattern is in black and white, it is sometimes difficult to see the symbol behind the outlines. It will still be very cute to put up in my daughter’s room!

The kit includes a well starched piece of canvas. You will not need a hoop to stitch it. The canvas size is just enough for the design, not much extra space for framing. Design: The design is not optimized for cross stitching. Many times you'll need to make just 1-2 stitches of a certain color. Each of the little stand-alone insects has less than 10 stitches but requires at least three colors. A lot of back stitching. Also not optimized, includes some very long diagonal stitches. Also many French knots. You are expected to do a lot of half-stitches, but the chart is not clear about it, and they are not mentioned in the instructions. If you just follow the instructions and don't do those half-stitches, you end up doing the back stitches at the end and watching your work turning ugly. Thread: There is not enough thread. The DMC colors on the chart do not match real DMC colors, so when you run out of thread you cannot safely replace it with standard DMC thread. The quality of thread is low. It does not survive reuse, and occasionally splits.

As others said, the i ran out of thread in 4 colors. I easily substituted with thread I had from previous work, except for one. The use of a color was separated by lots of space so it was okay if it didn't match entirely. I had to buy a .50 skein of floss and, as reported by others, the DMC code was not exact in matching the color. It is a very intricate design. The 1-2 stitches in a color and the frequent change between very similar colors was tedious. And there is a lot of backstitching. But all put together it is a very stunning design. The back stitching made the colors pop and the color changes add dimension. I didn't like the dotted line around the name/statistics. I stitched a border around in the dark blue (which I supplemented from my supplies) and outlined it in blue. More work in an already labor intensive piece, but it really makes the child's info stand out and will look great with the matting when framed. I also omitted the last name, wrote out the month instead, and added length in the bottom row. All-in-all it took a very long time and there were moments of frustration. However, I love the final project.

This is a great design and fun to work up. My only complaint is that the floss is poor quality. It splits and trays, and as a result, I ran out of some colors - black in particular.

Looks great!

I liked the design, but the floss was not enough, and I had to buy several colours

Ran out of embroidery floss. Had to purchase more local. Not impressed that it didn’t come with enough floss for the whole cross stitch

Not enough thread

Good service as expected item