Happy Wednesday! It’s half-way through the week, and a perfect time to send out a free hand embroidery pattern for those of you looking for inspiration and stitching ideas!
I say “embroidery pattern” rather loosely. This one can be used for a myriad of arts and craft applications – from embroidery, to quilting, to parchment and paper crafts, to painting….
Below, I’ll explain the how’s and why’s of this particular design, which is an old Therese Dillmont pattern from the DMC series. We’ll also chat about different embroidery approaches that can be taken with a design like this one (which I’m calling Dillmont Rose).
You’ll find the download link for the PDF at the very end of the article.
My reason for cleaning up this particular design didn’t really have anything to do with embroidery at all, even though it was originally meant to be an embroidery pattern.
I have a friend who quilts and who got into trapunto quilting for a while. She scavenged through a lot of my old books, and thought that this design would make a good design for trapunto quilting. But she couldn’t figure out how to re-draw the corner excerpt in the book (meant to be repeated four times to achieve the whole design) and get a nice, square, clean line drawing out of it.
When she asked if I’d do it for her, I was more than happy to. I like the design, and I figured that some of you might like it, too. So I scanned it, cleaned it up, re-drew it as a vector, and turned it into the complete pattern rather than the small “excerpt” found in the original book.
Embroidery Applications
If you enlarge this design from the size it prints (6.5″ square) to, say, 12″ square, it would make a nice pattern for crewel embroidery. Worked in wool, using a variety of stitches for the floral element in the middle and using soft shading on the leafy elements all around, it could make a very nice, traditional cushion cover, seat cover, stool cover, or any other thing you’d normally do with this type of pattern worked in crewel wool.
Enlarged, you could also work the design up in heavier whitework threads (or ecru threads on white, or white threads on natural linen), using textured stitches, and create a nice cushion design, too. It would be a little more modern in approach, and I think it would be really pretty!
If you leave the design small, there are a number of different approaches you could take with it, too.
It could work for goldwork and silk shading, with the leaves shaded and the floral element worked in various goldwork threads.
Finer whitework embroidery comes to mind as well. I could see the background area worked in pulled thread techniques to open it up a bit, and the leaves and petals worked in different filling stitches – like satin stitch for the petals, long and short stitch on the leafy areas, with textured stitching for the outlines.
And then, of course, there are options like redwork, blue work – any monochrome embroidery, just worked on the lines of the pattern, for quilt blocks or corner designs or notebook covers.
Really, when it comes to interpreting a pattern into embroidery, the sky’s the limit!
Quilting Ideas
Besides using the design as a quilting pattern on its own, it would work well, enlarged, as an appliqué pattern.
And, as mentioned above, it would make a good trapunto or boutis design. (If you’re not sure what trapunto is, you might check out this tutorial for trapunto by hand.)
Dillmont Rose Embroidery Pattern
Here’s the PDF for the Dillmont Rose pattern. It prints at 6.5″ square, if you choose “no scaling” or 100% on your printer settings. You can also enlarge it or reduce it on your home printer or a copy machine.
Dillmont Rose Embroidery Pattern (PDF)
Looking for More Embroidery Patterns, Inspiration, and Quick Projects?
You’ll find plenty of free hand embroidery patterns here on Needle ‘n Thread, from simple to complex!
If you’re looking to kick the Winter Blues, how about stitching one of the designs from Lavender & Honey and Other Little Things?. They’re small, quick, and they finish into pretty and cheery little “things” that you can actually use. They make fun weekend projects!
Stitch Sampler Alphabet is a great resource for quick and satisfying embroidered letters. They’re bright and flowery, perfect for adorning gifts for spring.
This motif might just become the quilting design for Mom’s quilt. I’ve been looking for just the right thing, and have drafted dozens of designs and motifs that I haven’t quite been happy with.
With appliqued toss pillows to go with the quilt, perhaps?
Thank you for another great freebie design, Mary!
Hello Mary, I love your site. I’ve been following your site for several years now. I visited today to catch up and have found problems “Pinning or Saving” your Patterns, whether it’s in the Tutorials or from your Pattern Category. I use an iPad. I’ve noticed your Patterns are PDFs. Have your patterns always been PDFs? I can’t seem to save any PDF on your site. I’ve not had any problems on any other site. Has something changed in your format? I would be heart broken if I could not continue to Follow you and your vast knowledge of Embroidery!! I send every Pinner on my Board to your Site!!! I hope you can shed some light on this problem. Follower Forever, jwt Janet White Tidwell
Hi, Janet –
Thanks for your comment!
I work on an iPad, too. I’ve double checked pinning, and it works fine, as far as pinning the image goes. The Pin It button on the image works seemlessly with Pinterest from my end. I don’t normally pin the PDF – in fact, it would be more “courteous” to bloggers not to pin PDFs directly, but to pin the image and send people to the site to download the pattern from the article.
The download link is at the end of the article, in a separate link. Occasionally, I notice google puts a “free PDF download” ad at the top of the page – this is not the pattern download. I always link to my patterns at the end of the article, under the subheading for the pattern.
So, when you click the pattern link at the end of the article, it should open in a new window in your browser on your iPad. Since it’s a PDF, you can touch the screen and you should get a bar at the top that says “Open in iBooks.” Sometimes, this will save it permanently to iBooks, but with larger PDFs, it’s not the best way to load something that’s large. It’s better to do that from your desktop and add it to your library, then sync your iPad with your library.
I hope that helps a little bit!
Hi
Thanks for the pattern. I have seen other old patterns on the Antique Library that I liked but did not know how to update them. Can you write a little more about the process? And if you still have it show what the original looked like?
Thanks,
Teresa
Dear Mary
The Dillmont Rose is lovely and as you say can be turned in so many embroidery and other craft projects. I didn’t know what trapunto was so just looked at your link and the Rose would look lovely as a trapunto project. Thanks for cleaning up and sharing the Dillmont Rose with us and for all your free patterns.
Regards Anita Simmance
Mary, thank you so much for all your hard work with Needle ‘n Thread, I really enjoy all the inspiration and tutorials! There’s one question I have that I was wondering if you might help me with. I have been wanting for a while to do a mega size embroidery, using perhaps knitting/crocheting yarn or some other kind of thicker yarn. Have you ever tried this? Which are the biggest needles available that I might use for a bigger size embroidery with thicker yarn? Would be so thankful for any tips!
Warmest regards from Sweden,
Malin
HI Malin,
Many years ago, in high school art class, we did large projects such as you described. We used knitting yarn on burlap and size 18 chenille needles. It was great fun and I have been thinking about trying this again. You may also find large eye needles at any
yarn shop. Hope this helps. Good Luck!
Jan F.
Jan,
Thank you so much for this tip! I shall try it!
Hi Mary,
This pattern is a nice simple pattern. I can see it worked in plan surface embroidery, the motifs would work into a small table cloth. by working a verity of stitches, I think it would turn out nice. A person could enlarge the pattern for the center, then use the leaf motifs for around the edges. Do you mind if we rework some of the pattern for the project I’m working on. I do need some small table cloths. Thank-you for the free pattern.
Happy stitching,
Louann P
Sure you can! Sounds like a great idea!
Hi Mary and hello to the community!
I love your site and ideas!
My dearest friend wants to start creating something you presented in August 2015, the Three-Stitch Bloomin’ Tree (https://needlenthread.wpengine.com/2015/08/the-three-stitch-bloomin-tree.html)
I would love to see her do it so I want to ask if you posted the pattern, instructions, and materials list somewhere, because I didn’t see them.
Thank you very much!
Hi, Mihai – I haven’t posted the pattern for that yet. Plan to this year!
How nice of you! Thank you.
I have been eying that Dillmont Rose and wondering if it could be worked up in the Colbert embroidery style. . . Hmm. Will keep thinking.
I think it could, Taffy! Good idea!