Tulip Cross Stitch Pattern

About this tulip cross stitch pattern

The tulip’s cup is magenta with lighter pink petal edges and a small yellow center, standing on a straight stem with two long leaves sweeping out to either side. It’s tiny, but the shape is unmistakable.

Tulips mark the window between winter and full spring, so this is a good early-spring gift or a quick break between bigger projects. It’s small enough for a card insert or a keyring. For a spring pair, stitch it with the Daffodil; the floral collection has more. Our spring patterns round-up has more early-season designs.

What you need

• Fabric: 14-count Aida in white, cut to at least 9“ x 9“ (3“ around the design for hooping and framing).
• Thread: 19 DMC colors, about 19 skeins in total, stitched with two strands. The main colors are 890 Pistachio Green – Ultra Dark (165 stitches), 911 Emerald Green – Medium (144) and 602 Cranberry – Medium (114).
• Needle: a size 24 tapestry needle.
• Stitches: full cross stitches only, with no backstitch.

Difficulty and stitching time

It’s rated Beginner. Don’t let the 19 colors put you off: most appear only a handful of times. Three greens carry the leaves with 367 stitches, and two pinks carry the bloom with 181, together more than half the piece. At 669 stitches it takes roughly 7 to 11 hours at a steady 60 to 100 stitches an hour.

Tips for stitching this pattern

• Stitch the leaves first. 890, 911 and 913 cover more stitches than any other part of the design and give you a frame of reference for placing the smaller bloom colors above.
• Circle the one- and two-stitch colors. Nine colors appear only once or twice, including 23, 934, 3731, 869 and 319. Mark them on your printed chart before you start; a single stitch is easy to miss on a design this small.
• Finish the bloom in one sitting. 602 Cranberry – Medium and 3804 Cyclamen Pink – Dark shade the petals side by side; doing them together keeps the shading even.

Size, fabric and framing

On 14-count Aida the finished design measures 2.6“ x 2.9“ (6.6 x 7.4 cm). On 16-count it comes out at 2.2“ x 2.6“, and on 18-count at 2.0“ x 2.3“. For the 14-count version, a 5“ x 7“ frame leaves room for a wide mat.

It fits a 4-inch hoop, or frame it with the daffodil for a spring pair.

What’s in the free PDF

• A cover page and a one-page overview with a preview of the design
• The chart, split across as many printable pages as you choose, in color or black and white, with a symbol for every DMC color, center lines, a mini-map showing which part of the design each page covers and a color key on every page
• The thread list: DMC number, color name, number of stitches and skeins to buy for each color
• The finished size on 11-, 14-, 16-, 18- and 28-count Aida