Cross Stitch Family Portrait (Free Patterns)

Hello!  

Life has been busy since we added our little Dominic just over a month ago.  

However, I have to be honest, he is a good baby.  

I’m pretty spoiled.  

Although I might feel like I don’t have many moments when my hands are free, I have found a few stolen moments here and there to whip up a cross-stitch family portrait of what my family now looks like with 5 members.  

And, I would really love to encourage you to make your own cross-stitch family portrait.  

It is a simple, easy project that looks just so darn cute!  

I have supplied patterns for a few of the people included in my portrait, as well as a blank cross stitch grid for you to draw out your own family.  

Also, I do a new family portrait every year, which I will be shared here over the next few weeks/days (we’ll see how much time the kids give me) and I will be supplying the patterns for those too–so hopefully those give you a good idea of how to create you own cross-stitch family portrait.

First off, here is the finished product and a picture of my family:

The first step of this project is to draw out your family in pixel form.  

To do this grab a box of crayons and print out a THIS BLANK CROSS STITCH GRID.  

Then, using my templates as a guide, draw out your family.  

You will, of course, have to be a little creative with hairdos and clothing… Assuming your family doesn’t look exactly like mine does…

And if your family does look exactly like mine, well, you sure are lucky!  

Here is a picture of my planned-out family… As you can see, my sweet daughter added a little bit to it as well.

As promised, here are a couple of patterns for women holding baby and toddler girls and boys.  

It is easy to adjust the height of people, just add a stitch or two to the legs.  

All of the stitches below are cross stitches except the baby’s eyes and the bow in the little girl’s hair.

After your patterns are created, grab some Aida cloth (I used 14 counts), embroidery hoops, a rich variety of embroidery thread and get to work.  

A few tips–I found the more colors or threads I used, the better.  

For example, all of the people in my family have brown hair, but each person has slightly different shades, and I let my portrait reflect that.  

There are several stitches in these projects, so it is going to take a little bit of time…but not much more than a nap-time!

Super-Cute, right?  As you can see, I dated this project.  

I have made a little cross-stitch family portrait every year and I display them all together.  

But, honestly, I am a couple of years behind!  So, I am trying to get caught up and in the meantime, I will be creating patterns and sharing them here–as a hopeful help to you if you decided to re-create your family in glorious cross stitch!

Thanks for being here!