Saturday, November 27, 2010

Cross-stitch alphabet


I've been working on various alphabets, mostly for cross-stitch and blackwork. I find that putting hilarious and snarky quotes in cursive makes them even more amusing.

Of course, cursive is a big pain, since the letters all join up differently and for some you can't join them well at all since doing the official, traditional cursive 'r' in cross-stitch will end up looking like an 'n' or will just be a bit confusing. I'm not completely satisfied with some of these letters (mainly the p and q), but it's a start. I haven't stitched all of them, so perhaps the 'p' and 'q' look nice on fabric.

Sometimes it's so amazing to me how different something looks on graph paper compared to how it looks in thread on linen. I suppose that's the nice thing about cross-stitch, you get some surprises.

Here I post for you the lowercase cursive alphabet, which anyone is welcome to use. I altered and combined a number of sources to come up with this. If you do use it (and end up posting your piece online) I would really love for you to link people back to this post or my blog in general. Click on any image for the full-size version!

I am also posting some pictures of various pieces I've done basically using that alphabet (with a few changes) so you can see how it really looks. Now work that needle, darlins!

6 comments:

  1. This is so cool! I sat all last night stitching capital letters just to practice (only just started doing needlework again after hmm, say 20 years of absence) and to see how it looked. And this morning I find your cursive alphabet on flickr! Thank you so much, it really makes a difference to see what it actually looks like stitched up and not just as print on paper - sometimes it's as if the thread and fabric have a will of their own and you have to negotiate with them :)I'm experimenting with enlarging different fonts in the Word-programme, the possibilities are endless to the point of exhaustion...meanwhile, the first thing I did today was to take out my cross-stitch piece again :)

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  2. Thanks so much! I hope it's helpful. You are definitely right about the thread and fabric having their own will.

    Hope you have fun getting back into the craft! I wish I could do cross-stitch all the time but it's SO much harder on my hands than regular embroidery is. Luckily converting fonts and pictures into cross-stitch patterns appeals very much to my perfectionism/slight OCD so if I can't be stitching at least I can be doing that!

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  3. I just used this alphabet pattern! Here's my result: http://i.imgur.com/8Q3E8gz.jpg

    Thanks for sharing it!

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  4. I'm glad it was helpful for you! Your piece looks great.

    I've altered it a bit over time (I'd barely done any cross-stitch when I posted it), so I suppose I should really share a re-boot.

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  5. Have you by any chance, done a upper-case letter alphabet to match with your lower-case alphabet? I'd been hunting everywhere for a simple cursive alphabet... but upper-case letters are needed! :P

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  6. Very useful letters, thank you!
    I use this cross stitch Photoshop action to make patterns.

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