Here’s a little corner leaf hand embroidery design for you! It would work well for adding just a little touch of hand embroidery to your fall kitchen and table linens, and it would also work well for card-making and similar crafts.

I like this leaf design. The swirly parts give the leaves a sense of movement – like a windy day in autumn!

If you look closely, you’ll notice that this embroidery pattern is one continuous line. The only sharp angle is inside the little swirly bit, where the new stem attaches. So, using a simple line stitch like stem stitch, backstitch, or chain stitch, you can work up this pattern quickly.

You could also use pre-made fine braid (or a heavier embroidery thread) and couch it along the lines, for a raised effect. This type of braid work is called “soutache” embroidery. If you happened to have something on hand like coronation cord, it would work well for this design, too – but you’d have to enlarge the design quite a bit, to work with it.

The original for this design comes from an old book in my collection. The original design was just a line of the leaves with no beginning and end, so I re-situated it so that it takes a corner, and I gave the lines a beginning and an end. You can expand the length of either side by tracing duplicates of the leaf element until you get the length of the pattern you want. You can also just use the top side of the corner, if you just want a straight line.

Here’s the PDF:

Leafy Corner Hand Embroidery Design (PDF)

You can enlarge or reduce the design to fit whatever project size you need.

Hope you enjoy it!

If you’re looking for something to stitch up this weekend, you can find plenty of free hand embroidery patterns right here on Needle ‘n Thread!

PS. Don’t forget the William Morris calendar give-away! If you haven’t signed up yet, do it before Monday morning, my time!