Graduation Cross Stitch Patterns

I recently shared a review of a book full of graduation cross stitch patterns and noted that I haven’t shared a lot of graduation cross stitch patterns before. So let’s take a look at some in case you have a graduate this year.

Keep it simple with this personalized mortarboard and diploma design from Little Apple Stitchery. You can add the graduate’s name, school and the year of graduation, or put their name at the top and their school, major (if graduating from college) and year at the bottom. As shown the design is 119 by 119 stitches, which comes out to about 8.5 inches/21.5 cm square.

Favorite Gnome has a cute graduation gnome, and you could personalize the color of the gown and/or the balloons to the school colors of the graduate. As shown it uses 21 colors and comes out to 8 by 7 inches/18.5 by 17.1 cm on 14 count fabric, with a stitching area of 102 by 94 stitches.

This word art graduation cross stitch pattern from New England Artsncraft is available as a pattern only or a kit that includes floss, fabric and a needle as well as the instructions. (The pattern is printed and shipped, not a digital pattern.) The project is 9.6 by 9.1 inches, or 24.3 by 23.3 cm on 14 count fabric and uses two colors.

The design from Elchka Cross Stitch doesn’t have a place for personalization, but it’s still a nice project for someone graduating. It is 93 by 87 stitches, and it’s about 6.6 by 6.2 inches, or 16.9 by 15.8 cm.

Cross Stitch of the Sea offers this lovely design of a graduation cap sitting on a stack of books with flowers. It’s 150 by 135 stitches, which is 10.71 by 9.64 inches/27.21 by24.49 cm on 14 count fabric. It uses 40 colors but is all full cross stitches.

If you know a girl who is graduating, these last two might be for you. The Graduated pattern from PuntAGOpetitePattern shows the back of a graduate with long brown hair, but you can change the color of the gown and the hair as needed. If you want a custom color pattern written for you, you can contact the designer.

And Skylark Cross Stitch has this pretty design perfect for a girly girl graduating in her heels. It uses 25 colors and four blends and has full and half cross stitches, back stitch and small back stitch, but if you’ve got the skills this is a beautiful one to make!

Next Pattern:

Book Review: Cross Stitch Celebrations: Graduation

A while back I made a little rainbow cross stitch pattern and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it, so I turned it into a patch. My idea was that it could be used on a jacket or backpack, or you could add a pin to the back and wear it temporarily on a shirt or elsewhere.

But what if you want to make your design more permanent? Is it possible to turn a piece of cross stitch into an iron-on design?

It turns out yes, it is, and Sirious Stitches has done it so I didn’t have to try to figure it out on my own.

The way they did it was by using HeatnBond, an iron-on adhesive that attaches fabrics without sewing. There was still sewing involved to finish the edges of the cross stitch fabric and make it look like a purchased patch. The post shows how to do this by hand or with your sewing machine. (I just did blanket stitch edging on mine, which doesn’t look like a “real” patch but is also a lot faster.)

Once you have the patch prepared it’s a pretty easy matter of using the fusible adhesive to the back of the patch so you can then iron it onto whatever jacket, pair of jeans, bag or whatever else you might want to add it to.

I guess I’m a little paranoid about the washability of cross stitch projects, though you could hand wash anything with an iron-on cross stitch patch as you might need to with a purchased iron-on patch, anyway. But this does look really cool and is a great option if you know you want to permanently add a cross stitch patch to a garment of bag.

Get the full tutorial over at Sirious Stitches. Would you add an iron-on cross stitch patch to something? I’d love to hear what you would use this technique for!

[Photo: Sirious Stitches]

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