Martin Luther King, Jr. Cross Stitch Patterns

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is an important holiday in the United States acknowledging the civil rights movement and King’s legacy of both nonviolent resistance and pushing against the system in the hope of changing things for the better for everyone.

Working a cross stitch pattern inspired by Martin Luther King would give you a lot of time to think about his legacy and a tangible reminder of all the work there still is to do in America and elsewhere to achieve true equality. Maybe you can stitch while listening to some of his speeches or watching a documentary about his life and legacy.

I love this MLK portrait from Eccentric Avenue on Etsy. It comes out to 10 by 8 inches on 14 count fabric and can be worked as a cross stitch, needlepoint or petit point pattern.

Twin Stitch Studios adds a famous quote to their portrait of King, which comes out to 110 by 107 stitches or 6.9 by 6.7 inches on 16 count fabric.

The same quote is worked onto a classic sampler style design in this project from Stone Street Stitch. I like the juxtaposition of old-fashioned stitching with a timeless quote. This design is 93 by 131 stitches, which comes out to 6.5 by 9.4 inches on 14 count fabric.

And lest we forget King the radical, we’ve also got a cross stitch reminder that a riot is the language of the unheard. This one is from Bitchin Stitchin and fits in a 6-inch hoop when stitched on 14 count fabric. And this one from preseverate, with a reminder that America is still a racist country. This one is really big, so the designer recommends stitching it on 20 or 22 count fabric (and even on 22 count its still 13.7 by 5.3 inches at 301 by 116 stitches). The good news is it only uses one color of thread, but you’re going to need a lot of it!

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Celebrate International Women's Day with Cross Stitch

Lately I have been feeling like all of my clothes are looking a little worn or feeling a little tired. I don’t want to buy new clothes, though, so there’s been a lot of mending, altering and adding special touches to things that otherwise might get overlooked or not worn at all.

As an example, not too long ago I added a little bit of embroidery to a T-shirt, which was a lot of fun to do and made me start eyeing all my solid-colored garments and wondering how they might look with some stitching added.

Of course you can cross stitch on garments, too, whether T-shirts or woven tops, skirts, pants and more. But it can be tricky to transfer cross stitch designs to your garment to make stitching easier.

Much like with embroidery, it’s great to use a water soluble stabilizer to keep your fabric in place while you stitch and to transfer your design (or your cross stitch grid at least) while you’re stitching. Then you just wash away the stabilizer when you’re done and it will look like the stitching has always been there.

Ashley General Handmade uses Sulky Stick ‘n Stitch, which is a product I use, too. It’s easy to use and washes away cleanly.

To make it even easier, she designed some printable cross stitch grids at different counts that you can print out to draw your own cross stitch designs, but you can also print the grid right on the Sulky, so you can stitch on top of squares and then remove them when you’re done.

Brilliant, right?

She has pages as big as 8 count and all the way down to 20 (remember: the bigger the number the smaller the stitches will be) that you can download and print to make your own designs and also use to make stitching on clothing easier. I’m definitely going to try this the next time I want to cross stitch on fabric!

You can grab her printables over at Ashley General Handmade.

[Photo: Ashley General Handmade]

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