Spirographic Cross Stitch

Most people have seen spirographic string art. It usually is constructed drawing a circle on a piece wood and evenly place a bunch of small nails around the circle's circumference. String is wrapped between different points, to form some pattern.

The problem with this method is the is requires accurately placing many nails, straight with uniform height. It also requires a board with enough thickness to adequately hold the nails firmly in place and with hold the tension of the string.

People have been laying out across stitch projects plastic grid. Using this as a guide I made a pattern that, instead of nails, has 17 pairs of small holes evenly spaces around the circumference of a 6" diameter circle. Cross stitch materials and techniques can now be can be used to connect the appropriate points together. This Instructable will show how to make such a template and how to assemble the design shown above.

Step 1: Make the Template

For this project I am using 7⅞" square of ⅛" thick MDF. You can use plywood, thick cardboard, sheet metal, barn wood, or whatever stiff material suits your fancy. Print the PDF attachment of the pattern, place it on your square, and drill the 34, 3/32" holes. If you have access to a laser you can use the attached SVG file to cut the holes. Use a countersink to lightly chamfer the edges of the holes to remove any rough edges. You can see from the photo there are 17 pairs of holes evenly spaced in a circle.

Step 2: String the First Burst

The first burst will use 114" of red embroidery floss.

On the bottom of the template. tape the end of the floss (0) and then pull it up through the counter clockwise (CCW) hole of one of the hole pairs. (1)

Move eight pairs over CW and pull the floss down through the CCW hole (2)

Pull the floss back up through the adjacent hole (3)

Again Move eight pairs over and pull the floss down through the CCW hole (4) and back up through the adjacent hole (5).

Continue this until all the holes have been used.

Turn the board over and tie the floss ends together. When complete, it should look like the photo above.

Step 3: String the Second Burst

You will need a piece of orange floss 114" long. Follow the same instructions as the previous step except move seven pairs over instead of eight. The causes the orange center circle to be bigger than the red center circle.

Step 4: String the Third Burst

Just like the previous two step except you will use106" of yellow floss and move six points CW.

Step 5: String the Remaining Three Bursts

For the remaining three bursts:

use the following floss color, length, and CW point movement.

Burst #4 97" of green floss and five points CW.

Burst #5 85" of blue floss and four points CW.

Burst #6 72" of purple floss and three points CW.

Step 6: Options

I made this design to looks like a rainbow burst. It used six of the eight possible burst combination. You can use any combination or color floss you wish. One nice option is to paint your template flat black and use fluorescent floss. An alternative to floss is #10 embroidery thread. It comes in ball of 300 yard and would be good if you were making these with a large group.

You can experiment with different patterns but I recommend you first try drawing it on a copy of the PDF pattern. When you are happy with the design then make it with the template and floss.

I would love to make a larger one on an old stop sign.ions