How to Make a Cross Stitch Banner

I grew up Catholic, and I remember when we did our first communion each child had a banner with their name and some religious symbols or other things on it, and for some reason that’s what this cross stitch banner project reminded me of.

Your cross stitch banner doesn’t have to go on display in a church or anywhere else out in public. Depending on the content of the stitching you’re turning into a banner, it would be super cute in a kid’s bedroom or playroom, or even in your office.

Hannah Hand Makes used a large stitchalong project to make her banner. You could do that (I love the idea of a Halloween or Christmas themed stitchalong being hung in this way as part of your decorations), or you could use a sampler project or even combine a bunch of patterns of similar sizes together to make a piece big enough to be a banner.

And really, just because this one is kind of large doesn’t mean yours has to be. A little cross stitch banner with a child’s name on it would be adorable hanging from their doorknob or above the light switch in their room. And talking of having a banner in your office, I envision a merit badge style banner with a bit of snark (like: survived another meeting that should have been an email).

Clearly there are a lot of different options here, and the instructions Hannah gives for how to make a banner out of a cross stitch project will work no matter what size project you’re working on. A giant temperature cross stitch? A bunting full of minis? Your wedding announcement or baby’s birth announcement? All are fair game.

Check out the tutorial for how to make your own cross stitch banner at Hannah Hand Makes.

[Photo: Hannah Hand Makes]

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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