Criss Cross Crazy!!

What is your favorite stitch?  Mine is Criss Cross Hungarian.  I love it because of it's tremendous versatility-- it can be used on any canvas and in any size area from big to tiny.  For a composite stitch consisting of only two elements it is amazing how many combinations you can come up with, making the stitch look completely different each time.  It's like the Tex-Mex of stitching, where just a few ingredients make up a whole tableful of different foods, LOL! 

I'll show you here some of my favorite versions I've collected in my stitch notebook. 

Consider the basic form of the stitch below.  You can stitch it in a solid color thread or variegated. The accent stitch, which is diagrammed here as a bead, can be a contrasting thread, a coordinating thread, a metallic, a bulky or fuzzy thread, all to great effect.  Or not a thread at all but a bead, a sequin, a crystal or rhinestone. I am sure I have still yet to stitch all the possible variations!

Here's an example I stitched using a variegated silk and a contrasting color bead:

Aside from what you stitch it with, this stitch also has a lot of variations both in size and in construction.  You can stitch it in an inverted form, with the longer stitches on the outside.  Note that in this formation, your accent stitch or bead would be oriented vertically rather than diagonally:

And both of the above stitches can be stitched in giant size as well:

There are some other stitches that are variations of Criss Cross Hungarian that I also love.  Caswell is a large and wide version of the stitch:

And it can be inverted as well:

This stitch is called Collapsed Star Octogon and it is like a mini-Caswell:

Also in my CCH collection are a couple of Nobuko variations, Double and Triple Alternating Nobuko:

Here's a look at the Triple Alternating version that I stitched in variegated green silk, with another bright multi-color thread and a dark green metallic for an effect of a field of flowers: 

So many combos of Criss Cross Hungarian here and that's not even all that I have in my CCH notebook!   I'll post again later with the rest of them, in the meantime I hope you will enjoy trying out some of these!