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

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35+ Sunflower Cross Stitch Patterns

I love the look of variegated cross stitch floss and how it makes it possible to stitch with a variety of colors without changing thread, giving your project more depth and a more complex look without you having to do anything different.

Or at least not much different. I recently came across this blog post from The Copper Fox all about how to use variegated floss and it noted that many people would say it’s a good idea to complete a whole stitch (when you’re stitching whole cross stitches) with the floss before going on to the next stitch. Most of us stitch row by row, but of course if you do that with variegated yarn, it could change color along the way and you’ll end up with stitches that are half one color and half another color or a different shade.

Of course that makes total sense but I’d never thought about it.

The post includes swatches with different kinds of variegated threads to show the different between working stitch by stitch or row by row, and it doesn’t make a huge different over the small area shown but I can see how it might make a difference if you had really long rows or if you just want to make sure your stitches are a single color whenever possible.

In addition to this experiment, the post talks about other ways to work with multicolored floss, including deliberately mixing the colors among the strands of floss you are stitching with and stitching in a different order instead of right to left and top to bottom (or whatever direction you typically work) to get different effects from the thread.

It’s fun to geek out on this stuff because it can make a difference if you want to play with it, or you can just stitch on without giving it much thought, and both will give you good results.

Check out all the experiments at The Copper Fox.

Do you do anything different when you stitch with variegated floss? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: The Copper Fox]

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