Cross Stitch Letters and Alphabet Patterns

Your pattern

Floss list

How to chart a name

1. Type into the generator above. It opens on the Text tab. Type the name exactly as you want it stitched — capitals, spaces and punctuation all chart.
2. Set the letter height in stitches. 12–16 is the usual range for a name on a sampler; below about 10 the letter shapes start to lose their distinguishing details.
3. Pick a font and a thread. Serif for samplers and heirlooms, Block for clean modern lettering, Typewriter for a plain even alphabet. Any of the 456 shade numbers in our table works — 310 (black) is the traditional choice for a sampler.
4. Edit anything you like. Letters come out as ordinary stitches, so you can nudge a serif, close a gap, or space the letters differently before you download.

The three fonts, and why a screen font will not do

A cross stitch font is not a typeface. A typeface is drawn with curves that a printer can render at any size; a charted alphabet has to say, for every single square, stitch or do not stitch. Take a screen font down to eleven squares tall and the curves collapse into staircases in whatever way the rasteriser happens to round them — which is why letters pulled straight out of a word processor come out lumpy and uneven on fabric.

The generator on this page carries three alphabets drawn for the grid:

• Serif — thick and thin strokes with feet, the traditional sampler letter. Needs the most height to read: below about twelve stitches the serifs turn into stray single squares.
• Block — even stroke weight, no feet. The most forgiving font at small sizes and the one to pick for initials on a towel or a bookmark.
• Typewriter — monospaced, every letter the same width. Useful when you want a date or a row of initials to line up in a column.

All three are ordinary stitches once they land on the grid, so nothing is locked. If a serif sits a square too far left, move it.

Choosing a letter height

Letter height in stitches is the only thing that decides how legible the alphabet is, and how big the finished name comes out. The table below is that arithmetic on 14-count aida, the count most kits use:

The fabric calculator does the same sum for any count, and shows what changes if you move to 16- or 18-count.

Why letters are hard on a grid

Type was drawn for smooth curves; a chart has none. Every diagonal becomes a staircase and every thin serif has to land on a whole square, which is why an alphabet that looks fine on screen can turn mushy once it is charted small. Two things follow from that:

• Height matters more than style. A plain alphabet at 16 stitches reads better than an elaborate one at 10.
• Hand-tidying is normal. Charted letters are a starting point. Stitchers routinely even out a stem or drop a square from a serif — that is why the maker lets you edit every stitch instead of handing you a locked image.

What to do with a charted name

Names and dates are the backbone of samplers, and they are the usual first custom piece people stitch: a birth record, a wedding date, initials on a small gift. Because the chart is yours, there is nothing stopping you selling what you stitch from it.

Keep going

About the colours. DMC does not publish official RGB values, so every on-screen colour table — including ours — is an estimate rather than a manufacturer figure. Ours is built from three public datasets by taking the median of each channel (how we built it); use it to plan the shape of a design, and check a real floss card before you buy thread. Charts you make here are yours, and nothing you upload leaves your browser: the converter runs entirely on your own device, with no account and no upload.