Christmas Village Cross Stitch Patterns

I always feel a little weird sharing holiday patterns as early as I know I need to for people to be able to make them for the current year’s holiday season, but in this case we might already be too late to start and finish these this year. But I know people love Christmas villages, both three-dimensional and in cross stitch form, and these would definitely be well worth the time they’ll take even if they’re not ready until next year.

This all started when I came across une rue á Noel from Chez Mounette, which you might guess from the name shows a winter street scene. It includes five buildings and the chart is in color but doesn’t show the DMC numbers for the colors, so you can use what you have to make this pretty scene.

Zanna Cross Stitch’s pretty Christmas village shows six buildings and a church steeple all lit up and covered in snow, with a little creek running through the scene. This one is definitely for experienced stitches, as the size is 400 by 400 stitches and there is no white space. It uses 85 colors and you can find it on Etsy.

I love the fanciful (and colorful!) village shown in this Christmas town scene from Stitchrovia on Etsy. This one is 140 by 141 stitches, or about 10 by 10 inches on 14 count fabric. It only uses whole stitches so it’s a good choice for new stitchers ready to take on a big project.

A more simplified version of the Christmas village comes from Lucie Heaton, whose pretty Christmas village measures 112 by 112 stitches, or about 8 by 8 inches on 14 count fabric. It’s so cute on sky blue fabric with its pink Christmas tree! It uses 15 colors and you can find it on Etsy.

This classic Christmas town cross stitch pattern from Wombat Stitching on Etsy has sets of buildings lined up together and a little sampler style scene at the bottom. This one is 323 by 137 stitches, or 22.8 by 9.4 inches on 14 count fabric. It uses 16 colors and is all full cross stitches.

Or spread out buildings all over your fabric along with some pretty trees to make this Christmas village cross stitch pattern from Etsy seller ABC Cross Stitch. This is a good one for more advanced stitchers, and comes out to around 18 inches square on 14 count fabric.

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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