Cross Stitch for Women’s History Month

March is celebrated as Women’s History Month, so why not stitch up some great iconic women from history to celebrate?

Debs Cross Stitch has this awesome kit for a women who made history cross stitch project, which features famous women from Cleopatra to Greta Thumberg. It is a Bothy Threads design and has an emphasis on British women, which could be fun for people in other parts of the world to learn about some people they aren’t as familiar with. The kit includes 14 count fabric, thread and needle. The finished project is 33 by 42 cm, or about 13 by 16.5 inches.

If you’re looking for famous women with an Australian twist, Spruce Craft Co. has the pattern for you. Designed by Ellie Ross, this one features the faces of 10 famous women from about the world. It uses 11 colors and measures 71 by 74 stitches, which comes out to 5.1 by 5.3 inches or 12.9 by 13.4 cm on 14 count fabric.

Good Morning Maui has a chibi version of iconic women of history, including Empress Wu, Jane Austen and Harriet Tubman, among others. This one measures 198 by 107 stitches and uses 28 colors. That comes out to 14.3 by 7.8 inches or 36.6 by 19.8 cm, on 14 count fabric.

I also love ten tiny feminists from Anita and Fred, which features the features of some famous women including Frida Kahlo, Lucille Ball and Ada Lovelace. Each design is made to fit in a 3-inch hoop.

Or you can just stitch up a single famous female from history like this Grace Hopper design from CloudsFactory. It features Grace and her computer and measures 65 by 68 stitches. That’s 4.6 by 4.9 inches or 11.8 by 12.3 cm on 14 count fabric. This is just one of their Fabulous Women in History collection, which you can find in the history section on their website.

Speaking of CloudsFactory, last year I also shared their larger piece, Women are the Architects of Society, which is definitely worth mentioning again.

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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