How to Properly Sew a Box X Stitch
Details
Details
The box X stitch is one of the most popular stitch patterns used in both the DIY sewing community and in prefabricated items. It’s used in everything from attaching straps and handles to bags, pet collars, leashes, camping gear and equipment, and more. It’s also the stitch pattern used most often in the marine industry for harnesses, adding straps to biminis and dodgers, and in creating webbing loops for load bearing applications. We’ll show you how to correctly sew a box X stitch and how to calculate the amount of stitching needed to achieve your desired stitching strength.
Though it looks complicated, the box X stitch is very easy to sew, which is one of the reasons it’s so widely used. Not only that, but the stitches are made both parallel and perpendicular to the axis of the webbing. This means that when the stitch pattern is used in a weight bearing application, such as with webbing loops, a load in either direction will be well distributed.
In this short video, we show you our method for sewing the box X stitch, which we’ve found to be the most efficient way to sew this stitch pattern. We also give you a formula for calculating how much sewing is required to achieve a desired sewing breaking strength. Does this sound confusing? Don’t worry! We break it down for you into easy-to-understand steps.
Let’s say you need to sew webbing loops that will hold 1,600 lbs. of force. How do you know if your stitching will hold? Our formula will show you how to calculate the total inches of stitching required to achieve your stitch pattern’s MBS (minimum breaking strength) based on your thread’s tensile strength, your chosen SPI (stitches per inch), and your webbing’s published breaking strength. With a few quick calculations, you’ll determine how much sewing is required to achieve 1,600 lbs. of breaking strength in your stitching.
After you’ve watched this video, be sure to check out our other more detailed blog “How to Sew Webbing Loops” (300336XHT), which has even more information on how to properly sew webbing for load bearing force. To be as accurate as possible, we tested four stitch patterns to see how different patterns fared when enough force was applied to break the stitching. We put our results into a handy chart and also included clips of some of the break tests so you can see how the webbing samples broke.