Cat Cross Stitch Patterns

In addition to writing about cross stitch for Craft Gossip, I also write about knitting and lesson plans, which means I’m always on the lookout for holidays, real and fanciful, that I can write about and share patterns and projects related to.

On a recent flip through the National Day calendar, I learned that April 19 is cat lady day, which of course compelled me to share some cat cross stitch patterns with you. (I am a cat lady, after all!)

Tango Stitch made this cute geometric cat cross stitch pattern that you can change the colors on to match your cat and your favorite colors. You can get it from JCrochet. There are actually several other geometric cat patterns on the website if you’d like some other options.

This adorable set of nine cat silhouettes from LaSelva Design on Etsy would be great to make as a set or gift one (or several!) to a cat lover in your life. You’ll find cats sitting, stretching, walking, pouncing, rolling, playing and making a cat loaf. These patterns are very small (all are less than 3 inches when worked on 14 count fabric) so you can use them on cards, put them all together into one design, stitch them onto napkins or whatever you want. The pattern comes with horizontally flipped designs as well so your cats can face either direction.

Speaking of minis, this little cat would be a great first cross stitch project, as it’s worked in one color and only has 24 by 11 stitches. The pattern is from Happy SL Store, and it’s so cute and little you can stitch it up in a day!

For something a little more detailed, try this cat in a cup design from Daily Cross Stitch. Lots of people like both tea and cats, so this would be a great design to stitch for them. It uses five colors and the stitching area is 62 by 57 stitches, or about 4.43 by 4.07 inches (11.25 by 10.3 cm).

And if you want to get super fancy, try this watercolor black cat and moon design from Light Unicorn Designs. This stunner is 12.5 by 14.29 inches or 31.75 by 36.29 centimeters, or 175 by 200 stitches. It uses 22 colors and is definitely not for beginners but would be a great way to show your cat lady love in cross stitch!

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35+ Sunflower Cross Stitch Patterns

A while back I made a little rainbow cross stitch pattern and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it, so I turned it into a patch. My idea was that it could be used on a jacket or backpack, or you could add a pin to the back and wear it temporarily on a shirt or elsewhere.

But what if you want to make your design more permanent? Is it possible to turn a piece of cross stitch into an iron-on design?

It turns out yes, it is, and Sirious Stitches has done it so I didn’t have to try to figure it out on my own.

The way they did it was by using HeatnBond, an iron-on adhesive that attaches fabrics without sewing. There was still sewing involved to finish the edges of the cross stitch fabric and make it look like a purchased patch. The post shows how to do this by hand or with your sewing machine. (I just did blanket stitch edging on mine, which doesn’t look like a “real” patch but is also a lot faster.)

Once you have the patch prepared it’s a pretty easy matter of using the fusible adhesive to the back of the patch so you can then iron it onto whatever jacket, pair of jeans, bag or whatever else you might want to add it to.

I guess I’m a little paranoid about the washability of cross stitch projects, though you could hand wash anything with an iron-on cross stitch patch as you might need to with a purchased iron-on patch, anyway. But this does look really cool and is a great option if you know you want to permanently add a cross stitch patch to a garment of bag.

Get the full tutorial over at Sirious Stitches. Would you add an iron-on cross stitch patch to something? I’d love to hear what you would use this technique for!

[Photo: Sirious Stitches]

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