Cross Stitch Patterns with Homespun Elegance

I’ve been choosing cross stitch pattern designers kind of at random to feature here from a list I found online, but it seems like a lot of the ones I’ve been choosing feature a lot of designs with a historic bent.

Homespun Elegance on Etsy has a collection of samplers, historic-inspired designs and projects with an old-fashioned look. Many of the patterns have the option of downloading PDFs of the charts or getting a paper pattern shipped to you, so if you’re shopping make sure you choose the format you prefer (they are separate listings).

One of my favorites is The Stitcher, which is pictured here. It’s a cross stitch sampler with a woman stitching as part of the design. This one is worked on amber cross stitch fabric to give it that aged look, and its shown in a 6 by 9 inch frame with some added embellishments like buttons and a little pair of scissors. You can embellish your project with whatever buttons you have in your stash, or you can leave it plain.

The site includes projects that are framed, pillows and other small designs. There are reproduction samplers, Christmas and Halloween patterns, patriotic and summer designs, Valentine’s Day and love projects and more.

In addition to the cross stitch patterns, the designer also sells punch needle and sewing patterns, frames and other notions such as buttons, charms, trim and other findings you can use to embellish your projects. Items are shipped from Virginia. These little bits and bobs are sure to inspire you to think about how you can add some embellishments to your projects to make them a little more interesting and give another layer of detail to your projects.

So if you’re looking for some old time, homespun inspiration for your projects, or some classic sampler projects to make, be sure to check out Homespun Elegance.

[Photo: Homespun Elegance]

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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