Part five in this text patch miniseries provides a collection of patterns for pride flags with three, four and six horizontal stripes. Now an even greater diversity of aromantics can celebrate Aro Week by making their own cross stitch pride patches!
You’ll need familiarity with cross stitch (full crosses) and backstitch to make unedged patches, along with a buttonhole/closed blanket stitch to make the edged patches shown above. The first instalment of this patch tutorial series demonstrates cross and blanket/buttonhole stitch, while the second covers backstitch. These patterns include quarter stitches, but they can be omitted if preferred.
For a complete guide to the stitching process for text patches, please see part one of this miniseries, where I’ve posted step-by-step instructions for stitching text. All patterns in this series can be similarly modified in terms of letter spacing, adding/subtracting quarter stitches and layout.
Notes on Pattern Structure
All patterns comprise block-style capital letters twelve blocks tall and nine blocks wide (exceptions: the letter “I” is three blocks wide, while “R” is ten). Every letter can be evenly divided to fit flags with three, four and six horizontal stripes.
Full coloured blocks indicate a full cross stitch.
Letter outlines indicate backstitch.
Blocks divided on the diagonal by a line of backstitch, each half a different colour, indicate quarter stitches. Please see my first text tutorial for more information on backstitching outlines and placing quarter stitches.
Space for edging your patch is not shown in the patterns below. You’ll need to allow additional blocks for this when cutting your swatch, depending on how narrow or thick you like your edges.
Aro Patch Patterns
All patterns in this post use variants of the letters “A”, “O” and “R” from my original four-stripe aro and aro-ace patches, so I’ll begin with updated patterns for these identities!
The four and six stripe “aro” patterns fit a rectangle 35 stitches wide and 16 stitches high. Assuming a three stitch border, as for my other patches, this means you’ll want a 38 x 19 block swatch plus any excess (if used unmodified).
Four stripe variant:
Six stripe variant:
Aro-Ace Patch Patterns
The three, four and six stripe “aroace” patterns fit a rectangle 68 stitches wide and 16 stitches high. Assuming a three stitch border, as for my other patches, this means you’ll want a 71 x 19 block swatch plus any excess (if used unmodified).
Four stripe variant:
Six stripe variant:
Three stripe variant:
In-progress patch examples of the older four-stripe aro-ace design are available in part two of my text miniseries.
Aego Patch Patterns
The four-stripe “aego” patterns fit a rectangle 46 stitches wide and 16 stitches high. Assuming a three stitch border, as for my other patches, this means you’ll want a 49 x 19 block swatch plus any excess (if used unmodified).
Aego folks who are new to cross stitch or embroidery should first attempt the simpler first or second patterns. I feel that the triangle shape looks more like random blocks of colour scattered across the text without also sewing a faded variant into the background, so I added this in the third version of the pattern. It is, however, more complicated (and time-consuming) to sew.
The third variant also requires more floss colours. You may prefer to use colours with greater or lesser contrast to the background.
First variant (no triangle, plain background):
Second variant (triangle, plain background):
Third variant (triangle, filled-in background):
Please note that the light blue in the third pattern is there for visual contrast, not as a colour recommendation. In the sewn patch, I used an off-white colour (DMC 945) that has a teensy bit of contrast with my bright white:
For most patches, I sew the text first, followed by the background colour. For the third aego patch, which needs precise placement of colour blocks in text and background, I found it easiest to sew a single letter and fill in the background around that letter before moving to the next. This meant I could check (and correct) the angles of the triangle while I worked.
You may also note that I skipped a row for the uppermost-part of the triangle (green stripe overlaying black) so the barest edges of black would show on the lettering. I don’t think this terribly obvious, but this means my triangle is not a true match for the aego flag. You may prefer to narrow the triangle so more of the black shows on the letters–or reshape it altogether.
Cupio Patch Pattern
The four-stripe “cupio” pattern fits a rectangle 51 stitches wide and 16 stitches high. Assuming a three stitch border, as for my other patches, this means you’ll want a 54 x 19 block swatch plus any excess (if used unmodified).
Fray Patch Pattern
The four-stripe “fray” pattern fits a rectangle 45 stitches wide and 16 stitches high. Assuming a three stitch border, as for my other patches, this means you’ll want a 48 x 19 block swatch plus any excess (if used unmodified).
Lith Patch Pattern
The three-stripe “lith” pattern fits a rectangle 40 stitches wide and 16 stitches high. Assuming a three stitch border, as for my other patches, this means you’ll want a 43 x 19 block swatch plus any excess (if used unmodified).
Quoi Patch Pattern
The four and six stripe “quoi” patterns fit a rectangle 40 stitches wide and 16 stitches high. Assuming a three stitch border, as for my other patches, this means you’ll want a 43 x 19 block swatch plus any excess (if used unmodified).
Four stripe variant:
Six stripe variant:
Note: not all quoiromantic folk consider their identity aromantic, but I include these patches here for quoiros like me, who do.
Recip Patch Pattern
The four-stripe “recip” pattern fits a rectangle 51 stitches wide and 16 stitches high. Assuming a three stitch border, as for my other patches, this means you’ll want a 54 x 19 block swatch plus any excess (if used unmodified).
Bonus Patterns
I also have a few patterns for LGBTQIA+ identities that aren’t strictly aromantic but may accompany, encompass or shape an individual’s aromanticism.
Aplatonic:
The four-stripe “apl” pattern fits a rectangle 35 stitches wide and 16 stitches high. Assuming a three stitch border, as for my other patches, this means you’ll want a 38 x 19 block swatch plus any excess (if used unmodified).
Asexual:
The four stripe “ace” pattern fits a rectangle 35 stitches wide and 16 stitches high. Assuming a three stitch border, as for my other patches, this means you’ll want a 38 x 19 block swatch plus any excess (if used unmodified).
Queer:
The six stripe “queer” pattern fits a rectangle 57 stitches wide and 16 stitches high. Assuming a three stitch border, as for my other patches, this means you’ll want a 60 x 19 block swatch plus any excess (if used unmodified).
Modifications
A further range of identities can be stitched in their flag colours by adding and subtracting letters from different patterns (many now available as patterns on my text patch pattern archive):
- Aromantic identity can be emphasised by adding the “ro” from the aro pattern to most of the above designs: “quoiro”, “recipro”, “frayro”, etc.
- Aro-ace aplatonic, fray, quoi, recip, cupio and aego folks also can add their respective identity patterns to the aro-ace pattern.
- Alloaro or aroallo is easily made by taking the aro pattern and the “L” from the lith pattern. Some combo flags, the four-stripe pink/green allo-aro flag and the six-stripe oriented allo-aro flag will fit this text.
- A cupiro design is easily made from the cupio pattern by adding an “R” from the recip or aro patterns. You’ll want the four-stripe cupiroflux flag for this variation.
- Placio is also made by combining letters from the cupio and apl patterns.
- Greylithromantic folks can make “greylith” or “greylithro” patches by adding the “G” and “E” from aego, the “Y” from fray and the “R” and “O” from aro to the “lith” pattern.
- Polarromantic folks can create “polar” or “polarro” patches with letters from the cupio, lith and aro patch patterns.
A few non-aromantic identities are also possible:
- Alterous people can make an “alt” patch from the lith and apl patches, using the four-stripe alterous flag.
- Gay folks can combine the “g” from the aego pattern and the “ay” from the fray pattern to stitch the rainbow flag (and many other lesbian and gay male/masc flags).
- Combining letters from the cupio, fray and lith patterns creates a “ply” or “poly” patch that fits the polysexual flag.
For tips on spacing, tracking and arrangement, please see my five-stripe aro alphabet post. As with the five-stripe alphabet, some patches may read better if the space between certain letters is reduced. My fray pattern, above, reduces the space between the “F” and the “R” for this reason.
Folks may have noticed that I’m halfway to creating another alphabet in this post alone, and designing just a few more letters (like “s” and “n”) further expands the identities able to be represented in text patch form. A complete four-stripe alphabet is one of my pattern goals, so please check back over the next few months!
Aro Worlds 