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!

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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