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Sunday 7 June 2020

Point De Croix and more French Terms

I did mention at the beginning of the year that I was learning French. It has been a lot of fun so far and has led to an obsession with French music. I figure more music to listen to is not a bad thing. If any of you are interested here is my Spotify playlist. Also here is my current favourite song... I love a good duet!



But outside of music I have been trying to broaden both my vocab & reading comprehension. So I joined a few new cross stitch groups on facebook. Except these were point de Croix groupes. Which is the French term for cross stitch if you hadn't guessed that already!

Once I joined these groups I realised how much I really didn't know. That even simple things like some of the words made no sense. You can't directly translate the English words into French. It just doesn't work. I found it particularly confusing as everyone was talking about their 'grilles' which directly translates to 'grid'. It took me a while (way too long really) to work out they were talking about the pattern. So I decided to put together this list after asking for some help from the awesome stitchers in these lovely groups. Facebook will translate stuff for you which does help but it's not perfect.

Point de Croix - Cross Stitch Terminology

Broderie  -  Embroidery
une grille - Pattern
le diagramme - the chart
un tambour - Hoop
un tambour à broder - Hoop
métal ou plastique - metal or plastic can be added to the end of hoop to specify the kind
un aiguille - Needle

Le tissu - the fabric
toile étamine - Cotton evenweave
Toile de lin - linen evenweave
aida - aida

échevette/écheveau - skein
le fil - thread
coton mouliné - thread / 6 stranded cotton
brins - strands
divisé en six brins - divided into six strands

Point de noeuds - french knots
Le demi point - half cross stitch
le quart de point - 1/4 stitch
Le trois quart de points - 3/4 stitch
le point arrière - back stitch

Travail en cours - work in progress
frog - frog (yep this word doesn't get translated.! No grenouille 😊)


These  are the words I got translations for. It's not everything you will use while stitching but I hope it will help someone!

Is anyone else as crazy as me? Or do you have more words to add to my list ?

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin



2 comments:

  1. I took French in high school, by mistake! It was supposed to be German and luckily I was able to transfer. But now I know who to ask when/if I come across French stitching!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't take me to be an expert in any way but I am getting better. I want to eventually be fluent but that could be a couple of years away yet!

      Delete

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