Polar Bear Cross Stitch Patterns

Polar bears might not be an animal you associate with Christmas, but they are a great choice for winter decor that takes you beyond the holidays. These polar bear cross stitch patterns are so cute, and they’d be great as gifts for a winter-loving friend or to use in your own home.

Talking of cute, there’s this baby polar bear cross stitch pattern from Daily Cross Stitch. The fact that its standing on a broken piece of ice is a little grim, but you can leave that out if you want. As shown it is 80 by 80 stitches and looks like it uses six colors.

I also love this geometric polar bear design from tiny kiwi NZ on Etsy. It uses eight shades of blue and white thread to make the design, which measures 73 by 86 stitches, or 5.2 by 6.1 inches on 14 count fabric.

And then there are these cute polar animals from Lucy Heaton, which features a polar bear, arctic fox, penguin and snowy owl. Each design is about 65 by 65 stitches, and you can stitch them all in their own little frames or make one big project with them. You can find the patterns on Etsy.

This pile of polar bears from Light Unicorn Designs on Etsy is sure to make you smile. It has a watercolor look to it that is produced by using lots of different colors of thread (the pattern doesn’t say how many, but says you can cut back if you think it’s too many, so that says a lot right there) so this isn’t a beginner pattern, but the results are well worth the effort.

Speaking of patterns that aren’t for beginners, there’s this stunning polar bears in scarves cross stitch pattern from The Cross Stitch Studio. I love their scarves so much; they look just like they’ve been knit with chevrons, diamonds and other colorwork designs. (As a knitter this really speaks to me.) This is one of those project of a lifetime type projects, measuring 700 by 560 stitches and using a whopping 90 colors. But wouldn’t you love to be able to say you made it?

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I’ll admit to not taking as much care as I should when finishing cross stitch projects. Just like blocking in knitting or crochet, taking the time to finish a cross stitch project right means it will look its best, whether you’re making it as a gift or to keep.

And when it comes to cross stitch, the best method for finishing is washing and pressing.

Kat and Catkin and Lillie makes the argument that you should always press your finished pieces, and wash them the vast majority of the time as well.

Washing of course will help if there is any visible dirt that got on the project while stitching, but it also helps remove oils and skin cells you can’t see but that can speed up damage to your project in the long run.

Washing and pressing also help remove creases from the hoop or from storing the project, and if you use heat-erasable marking pens to grid your fabric, this will remove any visible marks.

So we’ve got the why down, but what about the how?

Kat has a great step by step tutorial on how to wash your cross stitch projects and how to iron them safely. You probably have everything you need to do this, it just takes a bit of time to go through the process. It’s certainly worth it, though, if you’ve spent a lot of time on a project and are gifting it or framing it and want to show it off to its best.

Click over to the post at Catkin and Lillie for all the details, plus some really good thoughts on times when you might not want to wash a project and how to test the colorfastness of your threads so you’ll know if a project is safe to wash.

Do you wash and press your finished cross stitch projects? I’d love to hear all about your process!

[Photo: Catkin and Lillie]

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