In this topic, circuits of Orthodox icons are collected. Color schemes and black and white, symbolic, schemes in good quality, a key for schemes and tips for embroidering icons.
For someone with an embroidered icon, a bright road begins to the temple, to God. Before starting work, you need to ask, take a blessing for the implementation of the selected, for embroidery, icon from the priest.
  Good luck in choosing, and God's help in your work!

Prayer before starting work on the icon.

  Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, This is not described by the nature of the Divine, and for the sake of man’s salvation in the last days from the Virgin Mary, we incarnate incorrigibly and favored in the flesh, we describe life, and the holy image of Your holy face is printed on holy wood, and so on the ailment of Prince Avgar healed thou art, but thou art enlightened his soul in a hedgehog to know the true God of Our God, I instructed the Holy Spirit to thine the divine apostle and the Evangelist Luke to write the image of the Most Holy Thy Mother, holding You, like a baby, in His arms and rekshey: “Grace from Mena Rodschagos, for Men’s sake, may it be so”, Lord, God of all sorts, enlighten and enlighten the soul, heart and mind of your servant (the name of the one who is embroidering), and direct his hands, without a sin and Thy portray Thy residence, the Most Holy Mother of Thy, and all the Saints, for Your glory, for the sake of adornment and grandeur, the saints of Your Church, and for the remission of sins to all who spiritually worship the holy icons, and reverently kissing it, and venerating those relating to the Primordial image.
Deliver her from all devilish obsession, she always thrives on thy commandments with the prayers of the Most Holy Mother of Thy, the Holy Glorious Apostle and Evangelist Luke and all Saints. Amen.

The icon embroidered with a cross will be a great gift for an anniversary or angel's day. For many people, this will be a pleasant gift that will surely be remembered for a long time. To embroider personalized icons, you need to put a lot of patience and attention. First you need to pick up the threads and shades of future work.

Many of us are wondering how to protect ourselves and loved ones, especially in our young student years, or what to give Tatyana for the holiday. In this case, the art of cross-stitch according to the pattern may be useful to us.

Materials for embroidery

To embroider an icon with a cross, you will need to prepare all the necessary materials and accessories. Today there are a variety of schemes by which the work will be done. Also for embroidery you will need:

• white canvas. This is a fabric that is specifically designed for cross stitching;
• needle for embroidery;
• hoop. Some needlewomen use them during work, but you can do without a hoop;
• scheme;
• thread floss.

Before work, you need to look at the icon schemes to select the one you like. The colors in the scheme can be slightly changed at your own discretion, so that the needlewoman liked the embroidered icons.

Outline icons for cross stitch

Icons that are embroidered with a cross require attention and great desire from the craftswoman. It is worth noting that such paintings should be done exclusively in a good mood. More experienced needlewomen adhere to the following tips and tricks:

How to embroider icons with a cross

In order for embroidered icons to have an attractive wrong side and front side, you must adhere to the following technique:

• cross-stitching starts from the lower right corner. For example, you need to embroider five crosses. Then you need to embroider the halves of the crosses, which have the appearance of strips at an angle;
• then the cross should close in the opposite direction. Below is a diagram that will clearly show the technique of such embroidery;
• the needle moves from top to bottom. Thus, five embroidered crosses are obtained;
• when the row is over, then you can move on to the next.

Embroidered icons using this technique will look most attractive. In this case, all the crosses will have one direction and look aesthetically beautiful. Named embroidered icons will be a great gift for many people, because the person who gives such a gift puts a piece of his love.

Embroidered icons are not inferior in their appearance and elegance to the combination: cross and beads. Visually, they have a 3D effect, which gives them splendor.

Cross stitch patterns

Embroidery of the icon on the name day in Tatyana’s day

We all know that on January twenty fifth such a holiday as Tatyana’s Day is celebrated. This holiday is dedicated to the famous holy martyr, Tatyana of Rome. If the owners of all other names may not know when their holy day is celebrated, then all our birthday girls are well aware of this holiday. This is because the holiday Tatyana’s Day has gained national fame and national importance.

Many of us are wondering what is original to give one or another Tatyana for the holiday. In this case, the art of cross-stitch according to the pattern may be useful to us. If you decide to embroider a painting as a gift to your friend Tatyana, then you will have to think about the subject and pattern of needlework.

The motive for such needlework as cross-stitch is easy to invent on your own. Such a pattern is suitable for a gift, where twisted creepers with flowers and leaves are embroidered around the perimeter, and in the center is a name or congratulation for her. Letters for embroidering words are easy to find among a variety of patterns on the Internet. They can be printed and ornate uppercase, it all depends on your taste. Then remember what interests the same hero of the occasion, who should become the happy owner of the gift, and choose a motive in connection with these interests. All this applies only to your personal imagination and the taste of the person to whom this gift is intended. And the most magnificent gift will be the embroidery of the icon of the Holy Martyr Tatiana.

Today I selected a topic for review.

The topic is quite controversial, because there are embroiderers who will never do embroidered icons  (it is difficult to explain why, but many simply prefer not to embroider faces, let alone faces, and perhaps the attitude towards religion plays a role).

And there are those who do this according to all the rules, and as a result illuminate the icon in the Church and receive a real heirloom.

And in order to better reveal the topic, I would really like to dwell on rules for embroidering iconsto be followed if you decide to embroider it.

Rules for embroidering icons

1. First of all, it is advisable to take the blessing in the Church from the priest on embroidery icons. And, of course, at the same time be a sincere believer (it would be nice to confess and partake in advance). It is also advisable to show the priest the cover of the set, according to which you are going to embroider, before embroidery, to be sure that after finishing work he will consecrate it.

2. Embroidery should be started only with clean and kind thoughts, and before embroidered icons  read a special prayer (who will be interested, I can write it).

3. It is believed that during embroidery icons  you need to fast (I believe that this rule should be observed by especially believing people), therefore, the best time to embroider an icon is, of course, an Orthodox post.

4. You can’t sit down embroider an icon  in a bad mood, after a quarrel, holding anger, resentment or envy in your heart, after drinking alcohol, and also on critical days. It is believed that during the embroidery of the icon, the embroiderer cleanses herself spiritually, therefore it is recommended to embroider the icons not only for pregnant women, but also for those who cannot become pregnant for a long time (there were cases when women who embroidered the icons were pregnant and gave birth to healthy children).

And you can’t sit down at the embroidery of the icon on Orthodox holidays and Sunday. I even tested this rule on myself (I believe that embroidery is not a job, but a hobby, so I calmly embroider on Sunday, but embroidering an icon is a completely different thing, I tried a couple of times, but every time I managed to get it wrong so that I had to dissolve part of the work - and this usually doesn’t happen to me at all)

5. It is forbidden to use black color in the embroidery of the Orthodox icon, except for the eyes - where it symbolizes infinity.

6. The face of the icon should also be “well registered” in the embroidery, as well as in a real Orthodox icon made in oil (that is, the most accurate image of the face, and not a conditional image that can be folded from a certain distance)

7. And at the end of the work, the embroidered icon should be consecrated in the Church. When I brought to the temple to consecrate my icon, they didn’t even ask me if I received a blessing on her embroidery. While I was expecting a priest, a servant of the Church praised my embroidery so much that I think they would not refuse to have one in her temple.

Now let's look at which Cross stitch icons  will satisfy those rules that apply directly to it.

In my opinion (maybe someone wants to challenge my opinion, I’m ready to consider other options) the schemes developed by the designer meet these requirements Parking Ivanova (Solaria gallery)  (I wrote about its developments).

I embroidered designed Parking Ivanova  the icon

My next icon, which I already began to embroider, received the blessing of the priest is Blessing christ  design   Parking Ivanova

It’s possible that I’ll embroider her and Golden Tikhvin Holy Virgin

There are also on the Nicholas the Wonderworker

AND Holy Mother of God Tenderness

And a relatively recently developed design yn Seraphim-Diveevo Affection

And many, many others that you can see on her website www.solaria-gallery.com

I hope that all the icons you see will only increase your desire to embroider the icon, and the rules will not scare away, because the icon, embroidered with soul and good intentions, will be filled with powerful energy and serve as a talisman for your home, will be able to heal from diseases and protect from misfortunes!

And if you want to find an icon depicting the face of a saint whose memory the Orthodox Church honors on this day, welcome to the site "Sources of Russia". The site is interesting in that it briefly talks about the saints; about historical places of Russia; about the traditions and rites of ancient Russia. And for the soul there is a love lyrics of Russian poets.

Until communication and new meetings in the section!

Cross-stitch icons: patterns of holy images

Cross-stitch icons: patterns of holy images

The icon, or the image of the saint, has always been and will be claimed and holy in all Christian countries. They are made in various ways, one of which is cross-stitch. Embroidered icons are in great demand in a wide variety of age and social groups of people.

Personalized icons

Very often people are interested in acquiring personalized icons. The definition of the concept of nominal icons sounds something like this: "This is an icon depicting a saint in whose honor a person was named at baptism." Cross-stitching of icons is performed in the same way as other works where it is necessary to adhere to a specific pattern.
  The undeniable beauty and magic emitted by embroidered icons can successfully compete even with those works that are written by the artist's ingenious hand. Each embroiderer puts her spirituality into the work, thanks to which the embroidered icons acquire a special, inherent spirit.

Embroidery Kits Icons

In order to make cross-stitch embroidered icons, it is advisable to purchase a standard set for embroidery. The presence of a scheme is also mandatory. Each set has a fabric called canvas. On the canvas there are special cells that are needed for the convenience of embroidery. Canvas is especially convenient for cross-stitching. Also in the kit there are threads, instructions, as well as patterns for specific embroidery. It is very good for convenience to designate each thread color with a certain icon that corresponds to the scheme icon. In this case, it will be much easier for you to find the color of the thread you need in this place of the scheme and embroider the icons.










  Next, it is desirable to mark the canvas into squares of ten by ten squares, so that it is more convenient to embroider. This must be done with a special marker that can be washed off with water. When making embroidered icons, it is most convenient to mark the canvas from its center. In the event that you do not have such a marker, do not do it with a pencil or pen, because such markup may remain on the canvas. The embroidered canvas needs to be put in cold water, this will be enough to remove the markup.


  The needle for cross stitch is called tapestry, it has a pointed tip, and a large eye. When making embroidered cross-stitch icons, you can start work both from below and from above. It is only necessary to understand what colors are used on this site of embroidery. For this, the scheme has all the necessary instructions. There, the colors of the thread are indicated, as well as the types of stitches and the number of folds of the thread that correspond to each specific section of embroidery. But the best option is to start embroidery from the center of the canvas. To do this, fold the canvas in half, then again in half. So you determine its center. So the embroidery will be arranged proportionally, and there will be no cases of lack of canvas size.
  Embroidered icons, like any other kind of embroidered work, require a hoop. Before starting work, the canvas is placed in the hoop, fixing it well there with the help of a special device. For those embroiderers who do not have much experience, it is advisable to choose small canvases. Embroidered icons are beautiful regardless of their size. But when they are large, it is likely that you simply leave them unfinished, since for you it will be an overwhelming task. It is very important to buy a quality embroidery kit.
The quality of the work done and the beauty of your cross-stitch depend on this. Follow the direction of the crosses. All upper covering half-crosses should always look one way. You choose this direction yourself, but then follow it throughout the work.

Frame icon design

  To complete the work, you need to properly draw your icon, embroidered with a cross, in a suitable frame. To do this, we need a frame with glass and a back wall made of cardboard, an adhesive pencil and a sheet of Whatman paper. We will prepare our embroidery and preheat the iron. We measure whatman on the back cardboard, and cut it to the measure. On the finished embroidery from the wrong side, put the cut-out whatman with the white side down. We coat the drawing paper with a sticky pencil under the canvas. Iron the glue with a hot iron.
  After that, we put the resulting embroidery in the frame, on the glass, and fix it with the back of the cardboard. Then attach the hook and clamp the clamps. Instead of a hook, you can use a strong lace, well securing it.

Icon schemes