BLOG

Want to play with a free embroidery pattern? Here’s one that’s great for beginners.

It’s super easy – just a bunch of backstitching and one lone French knot – which you can replace with a tiny straight stitch.

I colored the image in with colored pencils before stitching, but you could certainly fill with the fancy stitch of your choice.

If I were doing this again I would probably do all the outlining in DMC #3371 – I love that whimsical cartoony look. But I already showed you all an example of that here and I wanted to let you see the different look you get by outlining with matching thread.

Remember – one of the great things about embroidery is that you get the image – but you can make it look however you like with your choice of color and stitches.

Here’s how to do it. . .

Download the free pattern here.

Transfer your pattern to whatever fabric you’re using. My favorite method is using Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy – there’s a video here that shows how it works.

If you want to make yours look like the image on the cover, here are the thread colors and stitches I used.

• Car – backstitch with 4 strands of DMC #311
• Tires and tailpipe – backstitch with 4 strands of DMC #310
• Exhaust cloud – backstitch with 4 strands of DMC #317
• Bird eye – French knot with 2 strands of DMC #3371
• Bird – backstitch with 4 strands of DMC #166
• Hat – backstitch with 4 strands of DMC #801
• Bird beak – backstitch with 4 strands of DMC #900

Remember – if you enlarge or reduce the pattern, you may meed to use more or fewer strands of thread.

Here’s another fun version made by my daughter when she was (I think) 8 years old.

I love that crazy rainbow car!

Happy stitching!