Celtic Inspired Cross Stitch Patterns

If you want a cross stitch pattern to honor your Irish heritage, or something to decorate for St. Patrick’s Day that isn’t all shamrocks and leprechauns (though those things are totally fine, too!) check out this little collection of Celtic inspired cross stitch patterns.

This Celtic blessing cross stitch pattern does have shamrocks, but it reminds my of my Irish grandma so I’m allowing it. The design is by Down Under Patterns and uses 25 count linen fabric. It measures 91 by 98 stitches and isn’t all that difficult but it does use several colors and a lot of backstitch for the words.

Celtic style crosses are a popular cross stitch motif, and this small one from Celtic Craft Shop US is also decorated with little shamrocks. Designed by David Jackson of Claddagh Cross Stitch, it measures 39 by 39 stitches, so it’s a pretty quick project you can frame, make into a card or even turn into a little pillow or pin cushion.

A larger version comes from Love from Rhi, which uses three colors and comes out to 6.93 inches by 11 inches/17.6 by 27.9 centimeters) on 14 count fabric.

Craft by Kai has a Celtic knot cross stitch pattern that would be pretty as is or added to the border of another project. The full design is 110 by 110 stitches (about 20 centimeters/8 inches) but you could pull out just the center part of the design to make a border, or use as a bookmark pattern. It uses seven colors.

Another popular motif is the tree of life. This collection of five Celtic tree cross stitch patterns is pretty simple but effective. Each uses one to three colors and they are designed by Cross Stitch with Art.

If you want to amp up the drama and skill level on your Celtic cross stitch patterns, these designs from Pandora Xstitch are for you. These stunning designs have such depth and detail they are decidedly for experienced stitchers, but what a fun challenge they would be. The set of patterns is linked but you can also buy individual patterns if you don’t want the whole set.

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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