updated January 24, 2020

My husband and I recently celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. It’s funny to look back at those fresh faced younglings we used to be, full of anticipation for what the future held. Well 10 years later, and many adventures later, we may look a little more tired and haggard than we used to but I’m happy to say that he’s still the one I want to do all my adventures with. I’m not me without him and in all the places we’ve lived, the homes and in-between homes, home is always wherever I’m with him! Ok, super sappy portion of this post over. On to the good stuff! I had so much fun designing this floral embroidery pattern and stitching it up for our home that I’m giving the pattern away to you for free!

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I just love this quote. And I suspect I’m not the only one. It’s such a beautiful sentiment and I think it really resonates with people. It helps remind us that home is a person, it’s relationship and connection, it’s not a material place.

I think this pattern is suitable for beginners. There are several stitch types in it, but nothing too complicated. I didn’t do up a stitch guide, so if you don’t know how to do a particular stitch you may have to look it up.

If you make this floral embroidery pattern I would absolutely loooove to see it! You can tag me @yellow_birdhouse on Instagram, or shoot me an email. It seriously makes my day when people make the stuff I’ve designed! I do a little happy dance and scream at my husband about it. Lol!

Materials – What You’ll Need

Here’s what you need in order to complete this project:

7″ Embroidery Hoop
12″x12″ Piece of Fabric
10″x10″ Piece of Felt
Printed Pattern – Get it below
DMC Embroidery Threads (colours indicated on pattern)
Embroidery Needle & Scissors
Hot Glue Gun (I use this surebonder, it’s a game changer!)

Note about fabric: I chose a very neutral/white background fabric because I didn’t want it to distract from the floral embroidery pattern. Then I actually used the wrong side of the fabric to diminish the visibility of the dandelion pattern even further. It was personal preference.

Note about embroidery hoop: My favourite hoops are the bamboo ones you can get at Michael’s. You can also find them here on Amazon.

All the colours of thread are provided on the pattern sheets. But of course you can make your own colour selections from your stash. I’d love to see how the design looks with a variety of different fabrics and colour combos!

Use 2 strands throughout, except for the lilac stems which use 1 strand.

How to Transfer an Embroidery Pattern

There are several ways to transfer an embroidery pattern onto your fabric, but I think this way is the simplest and most accessible. No need for fancy tools or products.

Simply print your free pattern and tape it to a window.

Tape your (ironed) fabric over the pattern. Keep things centred.

Trace the pattern lightly with a pencil onto your fabric.

For this pattern, I traced all the text, vines & leaves, stems and flower centres. I wanted the freedom to change the petal placement as I stitched and I didn’t want any unstitched pencil markings to be visible. So I didn’t mark any flower petals or berries.

Yes, if I had a do-over I’d avoid the fold mark that wouldn’t iron out. Lol. Oh well. You can’t really tell in the finished product.

Prepare the Embroidery Hoop

I always use a piece of felt to back my embroideries. This is personal preference. But I think it creates a neater finished design. You can more easily hide your thread ends, and the fabric won’t pull as you stitch so you avoid any large needle holes.

Cut a piece of felt slightly larger than the hoop. It gets trimmed at the end.

Centre the felt and fabric over the inner hoop and push the outer hoop in place. Tighten the screw. I usually end up using needle nose pliers to tighten the screw well without hurting my fingers.

Ready to go!

Unless you didn’t print your pattern yet, that’s a crucial first step. So sign up and get it already!

Beginner Floral Embroidery Pattern

First up, vines, leaves & text.

The vines are a stem stitch and the leaves are a satin stitch.

The stem stitch just creates the most beautiful seamless curves that you can’t get out of a back stitch. So pretty! Start at the bottom of the vine and work upwards.

Each leaf was about 7-8 stitches. I started with the first stitch down the centre of the leaf and worked my way out. (As you can see in the right-most leaves.)

For the text, I used a split stitch. Again, I like it better than a back stitch, I find that the result is much neater and more natural looking.

I start from the right and work leftwards when I’m stitching text. I’m not exactly sure why, it just feels more natural to me. Maybe because I’m right-handed?

I just have to keep in mind which lines would be on top of the others, as if it was being hand-written from left to right. The H illustrates what I mean. The middle cross is over the left leg but under the right. Make sense?

(If you’re interested in more embroidery patterns, I wrote this round-up of 17 sites with free patterns! Check it out after this one!)

Stitching the Florals

Next up is the cute as a button berry details.

The stem pieces are a single straight stitch and the berry ends are 3 short straight stitches. Simple and effective!

Now all the black eyed susans get a french knot center. I marked all the centres as I was transferring the pattern but I didn’t mark the petals.

I wanted to decide on petal placement as I went along, to make them fit the best in the space.

The petals are a lazy daisy stitch.

Some of the petals will overlap each other or the vines.

For the 6 petaled flowers, I made the first stitch then the petal directly opposite next. This helps make sure the petals are evenly spaced.

I love how the 4 petaled flowers turned out! Make sure all 4 petals angle downwards.

Next are the stems for the lilacs. These are done with 1 strand and a stem stitch.

I know on the pattern I’ve marked french knots instead of crosses for the lilacs. As I was stitching I decided to switch to crosses because I liked the look better. But you could totally try knots and see what you think!

This is what I mean about not marking the petals. If I had marked all those french knots I would have been forced to use them. This way I had the freedom to change my mind and play around a little.

And aren’t these tiny little crosses just adorable?!

How to Finish the Back

Again, there are many ways to finish the back of an embroidery hoop. This is just one.

Here’s what I did:

Use small embroidery scissors to trim the felt down to be as flush with the hoop as possible.

Use a small dab of hot glue to glue the felt to the hoop just at the top gap where the screw is.

Stitch around the perimeter of the fabric using a long running stitch. Then gently pull the thread to draw the fabric together. Tie the ends of your thread together to secure.

Cover the whole thing with a piece of cardstock cut to size and hot-glued in place.

Home is Wherever I’m With You

Beauty!

Progression

Something I really liked about this floral embroidery pattern was how cute it looked at each step. It would have looked great just with the vines stitched, or just with the berry accents. You get the idea. 🙂 You can use this pattern however you like to achieve the look you’re going for!

Let’s just revel in the straight-up gorgeousness that is this floral embroidery pattern, shall we?!

And go ahead and pin one of these for later, k? 😉

So pretty, I swoon a little. 😛

If you forgot to get the free pattern then here’s the sign-up box again:

Happy stitching friends!