Pencil Bookmark Cross Stitch Pattern

To celebrate back to school season, I wanted to make a fun and useful cross stitch pattern, so I decided on this cross stitch pencil bookmark.

It’s a really easy pattern even though it calls for six colors. You definitely don’t have to use all the colors if you don’t want to, and you can use different colors to make a colored pencil instead of the traditional yellow one.

These sorts of projects always end up taking longer than I imagined they would in my head, because I just don’t stop to do the math of exactly how many stitches are in a piece that’s 23 stitches by 74 rows (1,702, though not every single one of them is covered, most of them are).

But because the coloring of the chart is so straightforward, I’d say it also doesn’t take as long as 1,700 stitches sounds, if that makes sense. Because you barely have to count anything and could make most of it without consulting the chart, you can get into a groove pretty easily and stitch whole sections in a single sitting. I had a lot of fun stitching this one and I think you will, too.

Once the stitching is done, take a piece of felt and sew it to the back to hide the mess you’ve made and make it a nice smooth bookmark that’s easy to use in whatever book you might be reading.

This is a fun one to make for yourself or a kid in your life who is going back to school. But it would also be a fun teacher appreciation gift or holiday gift, especially for an English teacher but really anyone would like this one I think.

You can grab the free chart and get all the instructions for assembling your own cross stitch pencil bookmark over at Our Daily Craft.

I started writing this one as a designer spotlight kind of post, and then I realized when I was almost done with it that I had actually featured this designer before. It was in late 2024, so I’ll forgive myself for forgetting, but it’s worth taking another look at Mama Witch Cross Stitch. It looks like the shop has changed a bit since the last time I looked in, and you all just needed to see this amazing pattern anyway.

In the listing this one is called “whimsical opossum,” because of course it is. This little creature is sporting a straw hat and playing a banjo next to a crock of moonshine and surrounded by a wreath of pumpkins, mushrooms and other fall icons. Clicking through the images, though, I see it’s also called Possum Song, which is also pretty great.

Either way, the design is 144 by 130 stitches, which comes out to 10.29 by 9.29 inches, or about 26 by 23.5 cm on 14 count fabric.

This is not the only possum pattern offered by this shop, but you get the vibe from this one.

And to quickly check in on the rest of the shop, there are a great number of Halloween themed cross stitch patterns here, too, many with a sort of dark whimsy like mermaid skeletons, cat witches and a pumpkin-headed rider on a skeleton unicorn, to name just a few.

Another category worth noting, though it is much smaller, is “sad Victorian ghosts,” which features ghosts (sometimes in Victorian garb, sometimes not) going to the pub and the library, hanging laundry and taking a bath.

There are also a lot of Christmas designs, some sweet and some snarky, and a few creepy ones, too. Other categories include the new for 2026 “sunny patterns” (similar style motifs just with brighter colors and lighter backgrounds), as well as bookmarks and mini cross stitch designs.

[Photo: Mama Witch Cross Stitch]

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