Mini Christmas Cross Stitch Patterns

I love mini cross stitch patterns any time of the year, but they’re especially nice as we head toward the holidays and you might want to make some last-minute gifts. Mini Christmas cross stitch patterns are super cute as ornaments, or you can make them into bookmarks, little pins, add them to napkins, or whatever else you might like to add a bit of cross stitch to.

They’re also great because they’re usually sold as a set so you’re getting a bunch of patterns you can use together or separately all in one.

For example, Cross Stitch by Coconut has a collection of 100 mini holiday cross stitch patterns, which would be so cute stitched as a whole bunch in a sampler style, or as the border of another project, etc. Most of the individual designs are around 20 by 20 stitches and will take less than an hour to stitch up.

If 100 patterns sounds a little overwhelming, try Stitchonomy‘s mini collection, which has 30 tiny designs. I love the variety in this little collection, which has everything from Santa to a mug of hot chocolate, a Christmas pudding and a snow globe. The largest ones in this set are 31 by 31 stitches.

Purple Kitty Yarns has a collection from an old Coats & Clark leaflet designed by Barbara Swanson (and used by permission) that includes a couple of cute borders, ornaments, a wreath and other cute stuff.

These minis from Cross Stitch Inn Shop are meant to be ornaments, but you could use them for other little projects as well. It includes 16 patterns, all of which are smaller than 2 inches. The most complex ones use seven colors, but most only use two or three.

And these cute little projects from X Cross Stitch Pattern X on Etsy are all meant to fit in three-inch hoops. The largest size is around 35 by 35 stitches, and several of these are more winter than Christmas so you can use them as decor even after the season is over.

Christmas Word Art Cross Stitch Patterns

Christmas Sampler Cross Stitch Patterns

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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