Cross-Stitch

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St. Patrick’s Day Gnome Cross Stitch Patterns

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Gnomes are a fun way to decorate for any holiday, but it seems like they are especially welcome at St. Patrick’s Day. Are gnomes Irish? I don’t know, but they are pretty cute in green.

This one from Favorite Gnome, for example, has a stocking cap covered in shamrocks and long red braids. It uses 21 colors and measures 69 by 111 stitches, which comes out to 12.5 by 20 cm, or 5 by 8 inches on 14 count fabric.

Get some luck of the Irish from your St. Patrick’s Day gnome with this fun design from Neni Design Crafts, which includes a horseshoe and a bag of gold. The design is 80 by 99 stitches, which comes out to 14.5 by 18 cm, or 5.7 by 7.1 inches or 14 count fabric (there are other counts shown in the listing if you want your design to be smaller.

Cross Stitch Foxy adds a beer to their Irish gnome, whose hat has green spots. This one is 72 by 67 stitches and uses 12 colors. On 14 count fabric it comes out to 13 by 12 cm, or 5.2 by 4.8 inches.

Vitalyia Mishchuk’s leprechaun gnome at Cross Stitch Patterns has backstitched shamrocks on his hat and a latte in his hand. It uses 34 colors and comes out to 22.32 by 23.40 cm, or 8.79 x 9.21 inches on 14 count fabric with a stitch count of 123 by 129 stitches. If you like this style she has a whole set of seasonal gnomes that are cheaper to buy as a set.

And if you want to get totally silly with your St. Patrick’s Day cross stitch gnome, check out this design from Piccola Parigi. I really want to call it cheeky even though it’s not that, but we can say thank goodness for a long beard and a well-placed shamrock! The design is 84 by 88 stitches and uses 26 colors. On 14 count fabric that comes out to 6 by 6.29 inches, which is about 15 by 16 cm.

Unique St. Patrick’s Day Cross Stitch Patterns

Funny St. Patrick’s Day Cross Stitch Patterns

Easy St. Patrick’s Day Cross Stitch

Have you read?

How to Add Text to a Cross Stitch Project

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]