Cross Stitch Patterns to Celebrate the Year of the Rooster

The Chinese New Year is upon us, and the coming year is the year of the rooster.

I went on the hunt for free Chinese rooster cross stitch patterns, but the only things I found were on a Russian site that I don’t think pays much attention to copyright, so I didn’t want to share them.

I did find a few cool things on etsy, so if you’re willing to pay a few bucks to bring a little good luck into your home, check them out:

ScarletPyjamas has a lovely red rooster pattern inspired by a papercut rooster ($4.52).

There’s a golden rooster at Black Phoebe Designs ($5).

And HollysHobbiesUK has Chinese zodiac symbol cross stitch patterns, including this one for the Year of the Rooster ($2.57, or $15.49 for the set of 12).

That last site says that roosters are “punctual, bright, communicative, ambitious, capable and warm-hearted.” Sounds good to me.

Happy new year!

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Year of the Horse Cross Stitch Patterns

Last fall I came across this cross stitch pattern for a sea turtle and I talked myself out of sharing it right away because tropical animals don’t feel like a “fall” thing, but now that it’s summer again, let’s take a look at some cross stitch patterns for creatures that live in or around the sea.

This sea turtle design from Witch Wolf Web Creations is literally just a chart with no grid to help you count stitches or suggested colors, but I would print it out and add a grid to make it easier to stitch. You can work it in many colors as shown, or there’s also a black and white version so you could just do it in a single color.

Stitch up some fish or a seahorse with this bundle of four tropical fish cross stitch patterns from LaSelva Design. It includes a clownfish, seahorse, moorish idol and blue tang, all of which vary in size and colors used, but they’re all really cute.

Or you can stitch a tank’s worth of tropical fish with this project from SamXstitch. There are 22 fish in all on this project, which measures 153 by 153 stitches. On 14 count fabric that’s 10.93 inches or 27.75 cm. It uses 15 colors.

I also love the jewel-toned fishies on this project from Velvet Pony Design. This one has seven fish and a seahorse and measures 113 by 140 stitches. That’s just over 8 by 10 inches or 20.5 by 25.4 cm on 14 count fabric, though you can make it smaller with a higher fabric count. It calls for 24 colors.

This vintage design from Past Pattern Palooza Co has a whole school of little fish. The design is 120 by 260 stitches and uses 30 colors. It measures 8.57 by 18.57 inches (21.7 by 47.2 cm) on 14 count fabric. The pattern notes say there are 69 designs in total, an individual fish range from 1.5 to 3 inches, or 4.5 to 8 cm.

You can stitch up a whole tropical world complete with coral using this design from Easy Stitching Outlet (though I don’t think this one is particularly easy). At 219 by 95 stitches, on 14 count fabric it will come out to 15.6 by 6.8 inches, or 39.73 by 17.24 cm.

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