Oh, good morning, and a very happy Friday to you!
Today strikes me as good day to share a free hand embroidery design with you. And, with All Things Autumn sprouting up all over the place here in the States, it seems appropriate that it’s a fall-ish pattern!
This is, yes, another kaleidoscope design. It didn’t quite make the cut for Favorite Kaleidoscopes, primarily because it is season-specific. I had planned on stitching it up for the website long before now and sharing the stitching process as fall progressed, but I haven’t had a chance to tackle it yet.
Still – that doesn’t mean you can’t!
So, leaves and acorns!
How you approach them is up to you, but some stitching suggestions might include outlining the leaves in a variety of autumn colors, and working the acorns with satin stitch for the nut part and French knots for the caps.
If you were really adventuresome, you could work the leaves in long and short stitch!
And if you were Super Duper Adventuresome, some of those leaves would work well as stumpwork leaves.
Oh dear. That might take a while!
Thread Palettes
If you already happen to have Octoberfest! and the mini thread collection from House of Embroidery for that kaleidoscope, you have a good palette for stitching up this design.
I wrote about the thread for that just this past Monday, and you can read about it here, along with information on a couple discounts on House of Embroidery threads for Needle ‘n Thread readers.
Another excellent palette – and much more extensive – is the Autumn Collection from House of Embroidery. You can find it here. If you use the coupon code MARY2018, you’ll get 10% off, and if you’re in the States, you can apply the coupon code SHIPPING for free domestic shipping.
The folks at Global Artisans will honor both coupons, even if you can’t enter them both when you check out. (Some people were having problems the other day with the checkout process and both codes.) If you have a problem, just drop them an email or leave a comment in your order form and ask for both codes to be applied. I know they were working on fixing that, but if it’s not fixed, you can still take advantage of both coupon codes. I’d use the MARY2018 code first, and then drop them a line about free shipping. That way, they know you’re coming from Needle ‘n Thread.
Other Threads!
The kaleidoscopes make great destashing projects, though, so if you already have a good collection of threads, you can always work straight from your stash!
For those of us in North America, another excellent option for overdyed threads is Colour Complements out of Canada. #12, #35, and #37 in cotton floss will give you some nice autumn oranges, yellows, greens, and browns.
If DMC is your stitching comfort zone, they also offer some good browns, greens, oranges, yellows, and reds in variegated threads.
For those who might not like working with variegated or overdyed threads, no worries! Solid colors will work great, too!
The point is, there’s absolute freedom here! Do you what you like, to produce the results you want with your finished project.
The Printable
Here’s the PDF Printable for Autumn Leaves & Acorns. The design prints at about 6.5″ round, if you choose “no scaling” or “print original size” or something to that effect in your printer dialogue box.
Autumn Leaves & Acorns: Kaleidoscope Design for Hand Embroidery (PDF)
I hope you enjoy the pattern and that you have a perfectly jolly weekend!
