I am so excited to have Emily, from The Homemaker by Emily, share this gorgeous crochet wall hanging she made for her daughter’s room. She has created this whole set of crochet cursive letters and covers the whole alphabet. These are SO versatile and once you have the patterns you can create all kinds of great projects! You can stitch them onto other items or, follow her steps here to make a stand-alone crochet wall hanging that you can easily personalize for any room in your house!
Emily is a wife and mother who thrives on crafting, cooking, and reading. She began her handmade business in 2016 and branched out to designing her own crochet patterns in 2018. When she’s not hanging out at home with the gang, you can find her at her favorite yoga studio, digging in her garden, or on the search for beautiful new yarn to add to her stash. Her original designs can be found on Facebook, Instagram, and Etsy under The Homemaker by Emily.
Crochet Cursive Alphabet Pattern Inspiration
I’ve always been one of those rule-following, slightly OCD, “in the box” kind of people. I usually don’t step outside of my comfort zone or jump on the new and latest trend (and honestly, sometimes have a very hard time doing so even when I do). Content to play it safe, I wouldn’t call myself inventive and sometimes even doubt my own creativity as a yarn artist, but in the past year I struck a new path and decided to try my hand at designing.
The first part of 2018 was a fun learning experience as I developed, tested, and published my first few patterns for crochet accessories, because let’s face it, that’s the first (and usually, only) thing people think you make when you say I crochet or knit. But a little creative bug bit me in late spring when I was searching for some fonts to use for a wooden sign I was making for my house.
I was thumbing through beautiful, drool-worthy fonts when it hit me…these would be SOOOOO much fun to crochet! Pillows, wall hangings, baby blankets…the ideas came flooding in and I got to work immediately. Sure, there are plenty of patterns out there for crochet letters, but they’re kinda plain.
Simple block letters definitely have their place and need in the crochet world and those designers deserve ALL the credit because it’s hard and a lot of work designing and developing a pattern of any kind. But I knew I wanted to do something new and quirky and, not to toot my own horn, but downright COOL!:) Enter, my crochet alphabet pattern.
This set of patterns was a blast to create and really showed me I’m a better crocheter than I thought I was. It boosted my confidence and proved that if I spread my wings a little I can create amazing things, just like all the big designers we admire. I tried to keep crocheters of all skill levels in mind and even though I have labeled these patterns as Intermediate, I feel confident even a beginner can tackle them. Each pattern includes stitch descriptions for anything beyond the basics (i.e. dc2tog, sc3tog, etc) and I am always available to help if you come to a roadblock!
So without further ado, let’s take a look at a fun project I made for my daughter’s room and I’ll share some tips and tricks to getting the most out of your crochet letters!
Step 1 – Crochet the Letters for Your Project
For this project, I decided to make a wall hanging for my daughter Erin’s room. Her colors are pink and grey, so I decided to use white yarn to stand out against her pink accent wall. I crocheted the letters in your run-of-the-mill acrylic yarn you can find at your favorite craft store. (And let me just note, the cool thing about these letters is that each one only takes around +/-20 minutes to make!).
Now, as you can see, as the ‘e’ is made according to the pattern, its tail doesn’t quite reach to connect to the ‘r’. I added several extra rows to lengthen the tail of the ‘e’ as needed (these instructions are included in each of the patterns, accordingly; in addition to the ‘r’, other letters that may cause the need to adjust the previous letter’s tail are ‘j’, ‘s’, ‘x’, and ‘z’. If you are making a project that uses one of these letters, I suggest making that letter first, then make the letter that is to come before it in order to better gauge how many extra rows you will need to make in order for them to connect how you want it).
Step 2 – Join the Letters
To connect the letters, I used a large tapestry needle and did a quick whip stitch, making sure to weave in the ends on the back of the letters.
Step 3 – Blocking Your Crochet Letters
Next comes blocking. I know, I know. Nobody wants to be told they need to block their project. If you’re like me, I barely want to weave in my ends much less do the tedious job of blocking my work. But, with these letters, I highly recommend blocking. If you are going to be sewing them onto a pillow or blanket or something like that you could probably get away without blocking, but taking that extra step will really give your letters perfect shape and form.
Before blocking:
After sewing them all together, I simply just dunked my letters in water, getting them completely wet, wrung them out, and got to blocking.
Now, I don’t have any fancy blocking boards, so I just use an old towel and it works just fine. I set everything up in an out-of-the-way place on some carpet and pin the letters in place. There’s no real set amount of pins you needs to use, I just pin about every 3/4″ – 1″ and use more where the letters seem to be extra curly.
If you are planning to use these letters by themselves (as opposed to sewing them to something) and need them to have a little more structure to them (like for my wall hanging), I recommend using a spray starch. I picked this up in my grocery store; any brand will do. I’ve also heard of people using sugar water, decoupage glue, and corn starch to do the trick. You may do a little trial and error to see what you like best.
After pinning the letters in place, generously spray them with the starch and let dry as you would for normal blocking. After they are dry, cover letters with a towel and iron to set the starch. If the letters are not stiff enough for you after one application, lightly spray letters and iron again. Repeat as many times as necessary.
NOTE: If using acrylic yarn, it is very important to place a towel between the yarn and your iron. If not, the heat from the iron could melt the yarn and you certainly don’t want all your hard work to end up as a big melted mess! To be extra cautious, I start with a cool iron and increase the heat little by little if needed. Better to be safe than sorry!
Step 4 – Hanging Your Personalized Crochet Letters
To hang my letters, I had a few of those picture hanging strips lying around, measured out where I wanted them, and stuck them in place. Simple as that:)
I let my creative juices flow a little more and added a flower in place of the dot for the ‘i’…now THAT’S cute!!!
And that’s it! Now all you need to do is find the perfect spot to hang your project and show it off to all your friends!
Grab The Pattern and Start Personalizing
Grab the full alphabet set of patterns and get creative!
Make sure to share your projects to both our Facebook pages The Homemaker by Emily and Stitch in Progress or tag us on Instagram @TheHomemakerbyEmily and @StitchinProgress
If you are looking for more crochet alphabet inspiration, check out The Crochetprenuer’s post about Creating Crochet Text Without The Colorwork! We can’t wait to see what awesome ideas you come up with!
That is really cool!! I’ve never seen anyone crochet like that before!
Thanks! Once I saw Emily’s patterns for letters, I just started thinking about all the ways I could use crochet letters!