I am going hoop-less, because my own portrait has a 'hoop ghost', which may not be obvious to others, but of which I am keenly aware.

I checked the online advice. While the hoops are necessary for the needlepoint, they aren't so necessary for the cross stitch. The nature of the "continental" stitch, used 'coming' and 'going' to make the X neutralizes the tendency to warpage.

Just reverse direction each row to make the "backslash" part of the "X", forward stitch leads....