Working with the All Our Yesterdays Cross Stitch Collection
I picked up the All Our Yesterdays Cross Stitch Collection a few years back after someone on a stitching forum recommended it. The patterns are vintage-inspired, mostly florals and seasonal scenes, printed on fairly thin paper that tends to yellow within a year or two of storage. Not a big deal until you're trying to read a chart at 10pm and the contrast between the legend symbols and the background has basically disappeared. I ended up scanning the pages and adjusting the levels in Photoshop so I could actually tell a cross from a quarter-cross at that point. The collection itself is straightforward enough. It's a set of downloadable and print patterns from a designer who focuses on nostalgic, cozy imagery. Most of the charts use standard Aida 14-count fabric, though a few of the larger pieces call for 11-count to keep the final size reasonable. Thread counts per design range from about 400 stitches to roughly 1,800, which puts them firmly in the weekend-to-a-week project range depending on how much you stitch per sitting.
All Our Yesterdays Cross Stitch Collection
Here's what actually happens when you work through these. The color palettes are one of the more interesting parts. They tend to use muted, slightly desaturated tones rather than the bright primary colors you see in a lot of modern patterns. That means you'll be working with more shades of dusty rose, olive, and warm greys than you might expect. The charts are well-labeled, which helps, but the similarity between adjacent colors can cause problems if you aren't careful about tracking your threads. I once stitched a whole section of a lavender field pattern using the wrong shade of mauve because two codes on the legend looked nearly identical side by side. I had to rip out about three hours of work to fix it. The workaround was simply laying a blank piece of paper over the chart and only revealing the section I was actively stitching, which keeps the visual noise down. The instructions include floss quantities, but they don't always account for the fact that you'll naturally waste more thread on tension adjustments and color changes than the chart suggests. I'd recommend adding roughly 15 to 20 percent extra floss per colorway if you're buying kits, especially for the darker shades which show every little skip and mismatch. One thing people tend to overlook with this collection is the framing advice. The patterns are designed with a fairly tight border in mind, and if you're using a standard pre-framed kit with generic matting, the final piece can look cramped. I found that leaving an extra inch of fabric on each side before mounting made a noticeable difference in how the finished piece displayed. It also gives you breathing room if your tension runs a bit loose on the edges, which happens more often than you'd think with these particular designs.
There are also a couple of the patterns that use French knots in dense clusters. The instructions don't always specify the exact spacing, and the result can look muddy if you're not deliberate about it. I use a stylus to mark where each knot should go before stitching them, rather than just freehanding it. It takes longer but the finish is significantly cleaner, especially on the smaller motifs where knots are packed tight. If you're looking to get started, the patterns are typically available through the designer's website and a handful of independent craft retailers. Some are also included in seasonal bundles that come out around spring and fall. Pricing is usually in the eight to fourteen dollar range for single patterns, with the larger pieces running a bit higher. Downloads come as PDFs, and I'd suggest keeping a backup copy on a cloud service since the thin paper originals are not exactly archival quality. The main limitation of this collection is really just the niche aesthetic. If you prefer bold, contemporary designs or geometric patterns, these won't be for you. They're firmly in the traditional, cottage-core space. Also, the color charts can be tricky for anyone with color vision differences, since some of the similar-tone shades rely on subtle differentiation. If that's a concern for you, printing the charts and manually coloring the legend symbols with highlighters makes a huge practical difference.
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