A Welcome Warning about Witches

This cute Halloween cross stitch pattern would be the perfect thing to hang on or near your door to let people know exactly who they are dealing with.

It’s from Durene J Cross Stitch on Etsy and features a pretty cute looking witch who is nonetheless threatening to turn anyone they don’t want coming to call into part of the potion.

The details on this one are really great, from the goo spilling out of the cauldron to the flask full of eyeballs in the witch’s hand. I love the cat looking on suspiciously, the pile of spell books with a skull on top, the potion bottle and pumpkin completing the scene. Super cute.

The finished pattern is 113 by 195 stitches, which comes out to 8 by 14 inches when stitched on 14 count fabric or 28 count evenweave.

I like the look of it on a colored background as shown, but it would be lovely stitched on white fabric, too.

To complete this design you’ll need to be able to make full and fractional stitches, do back stitching and make French knots. The pattern doesn’t say how many colors are used, but I have a feeling it’s a lot!

If you’re new to partial stitches, I shared a guide to stitching partial stitches in cross stitch here. It also covers back stitching so you should be all set with that information, whether it’s new to you or just a refresher.

Looking for more cross stitch patterns with witches? I love this Best Witches one, which I think would also be great by the door. Or check out Calling All Witches and stitch up these ladies to look like your crew of friends. And don’t miss the chance to stitch up a bit of Witch’s Brew with this funky teacup cross stitch pattern.

[Photo: Durene J Cross Stitch]

I don’t usually cross stitch text or add words to my cross stitch projects. Sometimes I will sign things using basic block lettering worked in backstitch (luckily my initials are pretty easy to stitch), but if you give your cross stitch as a gift or otherwise want to personalize it, adding text is a great way to go.

But if a project didn’t already come with text, and you don’t want to draw your own, you’ll need a good cross stitch font that you can use for your project.

I like collecting fonts that are easy to read and to stitch and that would be good for lots of different uses.

For example I really like this bold alphabet font from Cross Stitch with Art, which has both capital and lowercase letters as well as numbers if you need them for dates or other information on your design. The capital letters are an inch/2.5 cm/14 stitches tall, which makes it easy to figure out how much space you need to leave for them. It’s a nice, basic, readable serif font you can use for lots of project.

If you want a script font that’s still really readable, check out Magic Calligraphy from Soft Pattern Designs. This hand drawn font has upper case letters around 28 stitches tall, with lower case letters mostly being around 20 stitches (though the ones that go up or down a lot like f, p and y are bigger). The numbers also vary a bit in size but range from 25 to 29 stitches.

Sometimes you just want a classic font that looks like sports lettering, and in that case you’re going to need Varsity, an all caps font from Stitch Mod. This one has letters that are 21 stitches tall, and it includes capital letters and numbers. But there are definitely times this one would come in handy!

Another sometimes useful and really cute font is this alphabet block letters alphabet from Stitch Junction. These letters are all upper case and look like classic building blocks, and there are also numbers available. This one would be perfect for a birth announcement project or some other cross stitch for the baby’s room.

And if that’s not enough for you, check out this post with 85 free cross stitch fonts for you to try!

Have you read?