Christmas Sampler Cross Stitch Patterns

I love a good sampler pattern, and this time of year it’s fun to stitch up sampler style patterns related to Christmas. Some of these Christmas sampler cross stitch patterns can work like an advent calendar, stitching a little bit each day in the runup to Christmas, or you can stitch it faster to make it part of your decor this holiday season.

The Holly Jolly Santa Sampler from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery is one of the quicker projects on this list. It features an alphabet, Santa, a house and a snowman, with presents and snowflakes making up the border. It is 58 by 96 stitches, or 3.6 by 6 inches on 16 count fabric.

The Santa Button Sampler from Homespun Elegance on Etsy is a classic style sampler with an old-fashioned Santa and tree alongside a colorful script alphabet. It’s called the button sampler because there is space in each corner of the design to sew on a button, or you could stitch a little motif like a heart or a star in the corners if you’d rather. This one is stitched on 28 count linen and measures 8 1/4 by 5 1/3 inches.

If you want something specifically to work on over a bunch of days, check out the 12 days of Christmas cross stitch pattern from Craft with Cartwright. This design has a symbol for each of the 12 days of Christmas in the song, and you could stitch one each day for 12 days before or after Christmas (the 12 days of Christmas are technically after the holiday, but we’re not here to judge).

Or try the Merry Christmas advent calendar from Owl Stitching House on Etsy. This one is designed to be stitched a block at a time and they are actually numbered in the design so you can easily keep up with which one to stitch each day. The full design is 137 by 233 stitches and uses nine colors.

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]

Have you read?