Happy Wednesday! It’s half-way through the week, and a perfect time to send out a free hand embroidery pattern for those of you looking for inspiration and stitching ideas!

I say “embroidery pattern” rather loosely. This one can be used for a myriad of arts and craft applications – from embroidery, to quilting, to parchment and paper crafts, to painting….

Below, I’ll explain the how’s and why’s of this particular design, which is an old Therese Dillmont pattern from the DMC series. We’ll also chat about different embroidery approaches that can be taken with a design like this one (which I’m calling Dillmont Rose).

You’ll find the download link for the PDF at the very end of the article.

My reason for cleaning up this particular design didn’t really have anything to do with embroidery at all, even though it was originally meant to be an embroidery pattern.

I have a friend who quilts and who got into trapunto quilting for a while. She scavenged through a lot of my old books, and thought that this design would make a good design for trapunto quilting. But she couldn’t figure out how to re-draw the corner excerpt in the book (meant to be repeated four times to achieve the whole design) and get a nice, square, clean line drawing out of it.

When she asked if I’d do it for her, I was more than happy to. I like the design, and I figured that some of you might like it, too. So I scanned it, cleaned it up, re-drew it as a vector, and turned it into the complete pattern rather than the small “excerpt” found in the original book.

Embroidery Applications

If you enlarge this design from the size it prints (6.5″ square) to, say, 12″ square, it would make a nice pattern for crewel embroidery. Worked in wool, using a variety of stitches for the floral element in the middle and using soft shading on the leafy elements all around, it could make a very nice, traditional cushion cover, seat cover, stool cover, or any other thing you’d normally do with this type of pattern worked in crewel wool.

Enlarged, you could also work the design up in heavier whitework threads (or ecru threads on white, or white threads on natural linen), using textured stitches, and create a nice cushion design, too. It would be a little more modern in approach, and I think it would be really pretty!

If you leave the design small, there are a number of different approaches you could take with it, too.

It could work for goldwork and silk shading, with the leaves shaded and the floral element worked in various goldwork threads.

Finer whitework embroidery comes to mind as well. I could see the background area worked in pulled thread techniques to open it up a bit, and the leaves and petals worked in different filling stitches – like satin stitch for the petals, long and short stitch on the leafy areas, with textured stitching for the outlines.

And then, of course, there are options like redwork, blue work – any monochrome embroidery, just worked on the lines of the pattern, for quilt blocks or corner designs or notebook covers.

Really, when it comes to interpreting a pattern into embroidery, the sky’s the limit!

Quilting Ideas

Besides using the design as a quilting pattern on its own, it would work well, enlarged, as an appliqué pattern.

And, as mentioned above, it would make a good trapunto or boutis design. (If you’re not sure what trapunto is, you might check out this tutorial for trapunto by hand.)

Dillmont Rose Embroidery Pattern

Here’s the PDF for the Dillmont Rose pattern. It prints at 6.5″ square, if you choose “no scaling” or 100% on your printer settings. You can also enlarge it or reduce it on your home printer or a copy machine.

Dillmont Rose Embroidery Pattern (PDF)

Looking for More Embroidery Patterns, Inspiration, and Quick Projects?

You’ll find plenty of free hand embroidery patterns here on Needle ‘n Thread, from simple to complex!

If you’re looking to kick the Winter Blues, how about stitching one of the designs from Lavender & Honey and Other Little Things?. They’re small, quick, and they finish into pretty and cheery little “things” that you can actually use. They make fun weekend projects!

Stitch Sampler Alphabet is a great resource for quick and satisfying embroidered letters. They’re bright and flowery, perfect for adorning gifts for spring.