Cardinal Embroidery Pattern

When you think of winter birds, what is the first bird that comes to mind? For me that would be cardinals. I love to see their flashes of bright red against the white snow. They can brighten even the dreariest of winter days. So for this month’s free embroidery pattern, I’ve designed this cheerful Cardinal Embroidery Pattern for you to stitch to brighten your day.

I tried a couple of new to me techniques for this one.

First, I’ve been wanting to learn how to color embroidery using crayons for a while now. In fact, I had planned to try it on September’s Pumpkin Banner but I had already finished the embroidering before I went looking for a tutorial, only to discover that you’re supposed to color the design before you begin stitching, not after the stitching is already done.

And second, I’ve been seeing some beautiful double hoop wreaths and decided that the cardinal would look really pretty framed that way.

I love how it turned out!

The body of the Cardinal was stitched using a stem stitch with DMC 321 Red. That same red was used for the backstitching on the beak.

Varying lengths of straight stitches in DMC Black outline his cheek.

The cardinal’s feet were a little tricky to get right.

I began by backstitching in the deepest shade of garnet in DMC 115 Variegated Garnet. After that I whipstitched over the backstitching with DMC 840 Medium Beige Brown. Then finally, one strand of DMC 840 was whipstitched around each stitch again.

All the stitching for the tree was whipped backstitch in DMC 840 Ultra Dark Beaver Gray.

Two strands of floss were used throughout unless otherwise indicated.

I love how the coloring has added a extra dimension to the design. And it was just so much fun to spend time coloring. I used regular Crayola pencil crayons in red and black for the cardinal, grey and a beige brown for the tree.

Earlier in the post, I mentioned that you’re supposed to color first, then stitch.

I actually ended up going back after I’d finished stitching and adding more color where I felt it was needed.

Click the link below to download November’s free embroidery pattern.

Cardinal Embroidery Pattern

Before we get to our monthly Stitchery Link Party, I wanted to let everyone know that this will be the last link party until 2019.

I’m taking part in a really fun 12 Days of Christmas Blog Hop and one of the days falls on December 3rd which is our regular Embroidery Monday and Stitchery Link Party.

The Stitchery Link Party will return in the new year.

STITCHERY LINK PARTY #145

For those who are newly subscribed or are visiting for the first time, at the beginning of each month I host a link party in which I invite others to share their hand embroidery projects. The party runs for the entire month.

If you’ve never linked up to a link party before and would like to join in, I’ve written a quick tutorial on How to Link Up to a Link Party. It provides step-by-step instructions for linking to this party (or any other link party you might like to participate in.)

The rules for the Stitchery Link Party are super simple but please do read before linking up as links that don’t follow the rules will be removed:

1. The project can be anything as long as it includes hand embroidery stitches in some form. Such projects might be but are not limited to redwork, blackwork, goldwork, bluework, (etc), counted cross-stitch, crazy quilting, crewel, silk ribbon, pulled thread, hardanger and sashiko.

2. Link directly to your blog post, not to your blog home page.

3. If you happen to sell your embroidery or embroidery patterns, feel free to link up to a blog post you’ve written about a project you’re selling, but No direct links to shops or websites selling things.

The next three are more requests than rules. They are by no means a requirement to take part in the party:

4. Please link back to the Stitchery Link Party with a text link somewhere in your post.

5. As well, please share the love and visit one or two (or more) of the other links and take time to leave a comment.

6. It would be wonderful if you decided to follow me but it’s not necessary in order to take part in the link party.

 Loading InLinkz ...

I would be so pleased if you chose to share by clicking on one of the buttons below!