Baby Animal Cross Stitch Patterns

Spring is the time we start thinking about and maybe stitching up little rabbits and chicks and the like, but there are plenty of other cute baby animals we can make, whether for a nursery or just to add cuteness anywhere in the house.

Admittedly a lamb might be considered a spring creature, too, but I couldn’t resist sharing the floral-crowned lamb cross stitch pattern from The Stitch Patterns on Etsy. This one can be purchased alone or as a set including a cat, rabbit and chick. The sheep is about 7 by 7 inches (or 17.6 by 17.6 centimeters) when worked on 14 count fabric. The stitch count is 97 by 97, and you could change up the colors on the flowers if you want to better suit your decor.

The same designer has an adorable set of woodland creature baby animals, too, which includes a rabbit, bear, fox, hedgehog, deer, owl, raccoon and (I’m guessing) coyote. These are each about the same size as the one above, and would be so cute framed as a set in hoops.

Speaking of hedgehogs, though, this little hedgehog baby (which admittedly is a baby in a hedgehog costume) is so ridiculously cute I’m allowing it in a baby animal cross stitch roundup even though it’s not really a baby animal. I mean, come on. This pattern from embroidery.com is 79 by 79 stitches and was designed by Ellen Maurer-Stroh.

Another cute collection of baby animals comes from The Fresh Cross Stitch, which has a collection that includes a lion, leopard (or tiger?), giraffe, elephant, bird and zebra. You can buy the whole set or an individual pattern you like if you prefer. Each pattern is about 80 by 80 stitches, which comes out around 5.7 inches or 14.5 cm on each side. The patterns use between five and 10 colors each.

If you’re a fan of elephants you’ll want to check out this super cute watercolor style baby elephant cross stitch pattern from Light Unicorn Designs. This one is 193 by 200 stitches and uses 22 colors. On 14 count fabric it will be 13.79 by 14.29 inches, or about 35 by 36.29 cm.

One of the easiest ways to make a cross stitch project more personal is to add text to it. Whether you’re adding the names of people getting married to a generic floral cross stitch design, birth information to a project on theme with the new baby’s room or just adding a word or phrase that’s meaningful to you, adding words to cross stitch projects make them that much more special.

But if you’re not working with a project that already has text built in, or you want to change the text that’s there, that can feel a little daunting.

Caterpillar Cross Stitch has a great guide to adding names and words (as well as numbers) to projects, which talks you through what to consider and how to actually go about adding text to a cross stitch project successfully.

You’ll need to think about what kind of font you want to use and if you’re using back stitched letters or larger filled letters, how much space you need and how the letters work together in the text you’re planning to make sure it’s readable.

Their post includes common pitfalls such as running out a space or ending up with text that’s off center and how to avoid them (spoiler: chart out your text before you stitch!).

The whole post is really helpful if you’ve never added lettering to a project before and don’t know where to start. I like to use block letters in back stitch when learning how to add text to cross stitch, but of course there are tons of lettering options. Check out this collection of cross stitch fonts if you want to see some different things you can try.

And head over to Caterpillar Cross Stitch to get more tips for how to successfully add lettering to your cross stitch projects. They also have their own alphabet and number charts you can buy to add text to your stitching.

Have you ever added text to a cross stitch project? I’d love to hear how it went!

[Photo: Caterpillar Cross Stitch]

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