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!

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!

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