Cross Stitch for the Year of the Ox

While we recently celebrated the turn of the Western calendar to a new year, the Lunar New Year doesn’t happen until February 12, so there’s plenty of time to stitch something in honor of the upcoming year of the Ox.

The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery has been hard at work on a series of cross-stitch patterns honoring the members of the Lunar zodiac, and the year of the Ox pattern features a cute ox with lanterns that have the numbers 2021 on them (which you could leave off if you want it to be more timeless.

The chart measures 58 by 67 stitches, or 4.1 by 4.8 inches on 14 count Aida fabric.

You can download a PDF for $5.95 or hit the website to order a paper copy.

[Photo: The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery.]

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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