Cross Stitch Letters: Turn Text into a Pattern

How do you turn text into cross stitch?

Lettering is the easiest pattern to make yourself, once each letter is drawn on a grid. The tool above does the drawing:

1. Type your text: a name, a date, a short verse, on one line or several. Set the space between letters and lines, and how the lines line up.
2. Pick a font. Every font here is drawn on square cells, so each letter is made of whole stitches.
3. Choose a DMC thread colour and the letter size. The preview shows the chart as you go.
4. Download the chart: a colour PDF, a black-and-white PDF, a Pattern Keeper PDF or a PNG image.

The chart works like any other on this site: a grid with a bold line every 10 stitches, row and column numbers, and arrows marking the centre so you can place the text in the middle of your fabric.

How tall should cross stitch letters be?

Height decides two things: how big the words are on the fabric, and how much detail each letter can have. A letter only 5 or 6 stitches tall has room for straight lines and little else, so curves turn into steps. Around 10 stitches, rounded letters start to look rounded. For a name on a baby blanket or a sampler headline, go taller.

To work out the size of the whole piece, including the fabric to buy, use the cross stitch calculator.

Download a whole cross stitch alphabet

Below the tool, one button downloads the full alphabet in the font you picked, in colour or in black and white: capitals A to Z, small letters a to z and the digits 0 to 9, laid out as a chart. Keep it next to your stitching to spell anything you like, mix it into a design of your own, or use it to plan a sampler.

Alphabets have been part of cross stitch for centuries. Samplers began as a needlewoman’s record of stitches and patterns; once they were taught in schools, letters were part of the lesson.

Source: Wikipedia: Sampler (needlework).

Names with accents: é, ñ, ü and more

Names are rarely plain A to Z. The tool handles accented Latin letters such as é, ñ and ü. If the font you picked has no shape for a letter you typed, the tool says which letter is missing and asks you to try another font. It never quietly puts an empty box in your chart.

Choosing thread and fabric for lettering

One dark colour on a light fabric is the most readable choice: DMC 310 (black) or a deep navy on white or cream Aida. Light letters on dark fabric work too, but they need a lamp to stitch.

Lettering uses less thread than a picture of the same size, because most of the fabric is left bare. The colour key still counts the skeins for you, using the same cautious estimate as the calculator.

Have a photo instead?

For a pet, a portrait or a place, the cross stitch pattern maker turns a photo into a chart with up to 100 DMC colours. It is free, like this page, and the photo is converted in your browser. Want both on one piece? Make each part, then stitch the text below the picture using the centre arrows to line them up. The photo to pattern tool and this page use the same chart layout.