It’s a truth universally acknowledged that all you need is love and tacos. It’s science, I’m sure of it. So obviously it needed to be immortalized in stitching. That’s why I designed this super fun, floral & free hand embroidery pattern!
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I wish I could spend all my time designing fun embroidery patterns. Why oh why do I have to waste so much time on keeping my kids alive and cleaning the house and eating?! Ugh. I just wanna stitch. haha Can you tell that hand-sewing is one of my favourite things?!
It’s not lost on me that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and this free hand embroidery pattern would be absolutely perfect as a gift for someone you love almost as much as you love tacos!
But I also think the sentiment is pretty solid year-round. 🙂
Free Hand Embroidery Pattern
This pattern also comes with a beautiful printable stitch guide that will show you how to create all of the stitches in this design.
It’s a beginner-friendly design, but if you’ve never embroidered anything before, you may want to practice the stitches on a scrap piece of fabric first, just to get the hang of it!
Gather Materials
Here what you’ll need to make this Love and Tacos embroidery:
7″ Embroidery Hoop
8″ Square of Cotton Fabric
8″ Square of Felt
Printed Pattern (you can find it at the end of the post)
Selection of Embroidery Threads
Embroidery Scissors (these are the ones pictured below, so sharp and pointy!)
Sewing Needle
Mechanical Pencil
Scotch Tape
Hot Glue Gun (linked to my fave Surebonder)
Notes on Materials:
My favourite embroidery hoops are the bamboo ones, I get mine at Michael’s, but you can also get them here on Amazon.
This pattern is sized perfectly for a 7″ hoop when it’s printed at 100%. I wouldn’t recommend printing it smaller because the script text gets harder to stitch the smaller it gets. But if you have a larger hoop, you could totally print the pattern larger to fit. Start with 110% and see how it goes!
I only ever use a good quality wool blend felt when I’m crafting, but in this one instance, if all you have access to is acrylic craft felt, that would be fine for this project.
How to Transfer an Embroidery Pattern
The easiest way I’ve found for transferring an embroidery pattern onto fabric is to use a window.
Simply tape the paper pattern to the window, then tape the fabric on top. Use a mechanical pencil to trace the pattern onto the fabric with a light hand.
For this particular pattern, I carefully traced the text and the heart. But for the florals, I just traced enough to be a reference and create starting points.
The last thing I want is for any pencil markings to remain showing after the design is stitched. And sometimes the stitching shifts a bit from the markings, or you need to move a stitch to make the design work better. You have more freedom to adjust the design if you haven’t use a heavy hand to trace the pattern. I hope that makes sense!
There are lots of other ways to transfer an embroidery pattern to fabric, but I think this is the easiest method using tools most people already have on hand.
Putting the Fabric in the Hoop
Once the pattern has been transferred, layer the fabric on top of the square of felt and position both on top of the inner ring of the hoop. Center the design in the middle of the hoop, loosen the screw and push the outer ring around the inner ring. Make sure your fabric hasn’t shifted and tighten the screw.
Typically, most people wait to finish the back of the hoop until the design has been stitched, but I don’t do that. I find the extra fabric flapping around the hoop just gets in the way of my stitching.
I keep things simple for this step too.
Using a small pair of scissors, trim the felt so it is flush with the edge of the hoop. Then trim the fabric so there is only about 3/4″ -1″ of overhang. Wrap the fabric to the inside of the hoop and hot glue it in place. Take extra care when you’re glueing the little section under the screw, make sure to get the felt and fabric to lie flat.
That’s all I do.
Unless I’m giving the hoop away as a gift, then I might glue on another circle layer of felt or even paper to hide the stitching. You can see how I did that in this post of ANOTHER free hand embroidery pattern I designed!
I love making freebies for you guys. Find more fun patterns in the freebies tab!
But since I also love being able to pay the bills, I have some adorable embroidered felt animal patterns in the shop. I’d be honoured if you’d take a peek and maybe even pin one of them! Thanks! xo
Start Embroidering!
Ok, now you’re ready to stitch.
Start with the heart, which is worked with a stem stitch. A stem stitch is really nice for curves and it looks like one unbroken line when you take a step back.
I used 4 strands of thread because I wanted a nice thickly defined heart. (Typically I only ever use 1-2 threads for embroidery, so 4 threads was wayyy out of my comfort zone! But I love how it turned out.)
Next up is the greenery. I used 2 strands of thread and a back stitch to do the leaves and stems. I ended up using 2 different shades of green to help define the different floral elements better.
Now to make the little flower buds on the ends of the stems, use 3 strands of purple and either a tiny x stitch or a french knot. I went with x’s because they’re so darn cute!
At this point, some of your flower stitches might overlap onto the greenery and that’s totally fine!
The final step for the floral design is the pink flowers. I used 3 strands and 5 lazy daisy stitches to create each flower, then I went back and filled each ‘petal’ with a long straight stitch. That step is optional if you prefer an open looking petal.
Lastly, embroider the text with 2 strands of a dark coloured thread and a split stitch. Use a French knot for the dot on the i. Use very small stitches and have lots of patience! Sometimes script text can be tricky, but the end result is so worth it!
All done!
How cute is this pattern?! I can’t stand it. lol
Here’s the box to sign up for this free hand embroidery pattern:
Pretty please if you make this pattern I WANT TO SEE IT! Tag me on Insta @yellow_birdhouse 😀 And don’t forget to pin one of the images from this post for later.
Happy Stitching!
xo
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