Because it’s Wednesday, because we’re half-way through the week, and because I love playing with embroidery designs, I think today’s a great day to share a free hand embroidery pattern with you!
I’ve been playing with this design for a purpose, which I’ll tell you about below. I haven’t had a chance to pursue working the design yet – hoping to start something this weekend – but in the meantime, I thought I’d share the embroidery designs with you.
I extracted the components from this pattern from an old ecclesiastical design. Grapes & wheat are symbolic in ecclesiastical embroidery, but it just so happens they also work well for secular kitchen and table embroidery, too.
You’ll find the design that these components came from in my Church Patterns e-book, for those who are looking for church-related embroidery designs.
These particular grapes & wheat have a very contemporary flavor, so that’s why I started doodling around with them.
I wanted something that would work well on the narrow, straight end of something like a table runner or that would look nice centered on the front edge of a hand towel, and I think the above design would work for both of those placement ideas.
I might jostle it about a little more and elongate the design a bit – we shall see!
But I also wanted to explore something that was much more corner-suited – something that worked well in a 90-degree corner situation. Hence, the second version just above.
I’m thinking tambour embroidery for this. I have a new tambour hook I want to try out very soon. (If you’re not familiar with tambour embroidery, you can read all about it here, along with tips, techniques, and patterns.)
And I’m thinking – since the linen is a natural color and rather fine linen – that I will try this in tambour work, in white on natural.
Admittedly, part of me is still hemming and hawing over the color. I like color, after all…
So that’s what I’m toying with, design wise, at the moment, for just a very quick project all around. The purpose of the project, really, is to test a couple things – specifically, the linen towels that I recently came across, that I think might make good blanks for embroidery, a new tambour hook, and a transfer method.
I’ll be back with results of my tests, but in the meantime, perhaps you’ll enjoy doing something with the pattern.
Printable PDF with the Embroidery Designs
Here’s a handy-dandy PDF printable with the designs on it. The upright should print at about 5″ high, if you choose “no scaling” or “100%” or something similar in your printer dialogue box.
Contemporary Grapes & Wheat Hand Embroidery Design (PDF)
I hope you like it and find some use for it!
Have a Wonderful Wednesday!
If you’re looking for more hand embroidery designs here on Needle ‘n Thread, you’ll find a slew of free embroidery patterns available here. You can also find several hand embroidery pattern books available in my shop, including one on Church Patterns, one on hand embroidered kaleidoscope designs, and one featuring 16 full monogram alphabets in various styles.
Hey-love the design, it really got me thinking. Like the idea of tambour work and the color; but how about a little gold work on the outside of the leaf and maybe the wheat? Just a thought.
Goldwork would be great, too! I was thinking more along the lines of household linens for this, though, so I probably wouldn’t use goldwork in that case. But for a stand-alone embroidery project, definitely!
Dear Mary
A lovely design Mary and it would look good on tea towels, runners etc. How exciting a new tambour hook I hope you start it soon would love to see a demonstration of how you approach this design using the tambour hook and it looks an easy design and would not take long to stitch it. Thank you for sharing with us the wheat and grape pattern and for sharing the free pattern with us.
Regards Anita Simmance
Thank you for making my Wednesday special… sharing the pattern is a lovely bonus! Looking forward to seeing your progress and perhaps some feedback on the new Tambour tool.
Hi Mary, great design. Since our area is all about grapes, I think if I were to make this, I would exchange on the motif with the one wheat stalk, the wheat for another grape leaf. My town is all about grapes and other fruit growing. If you have ever had Welch’s grape juice, it more than likely came from here as we have the largest of the Welch’s production plants in our town. Harvest takes 4-5 weeks and if you are a grower or a Welch’s employee, your life stands still (or more accurately in full speed ahead to get the harvest in and the initial processing) for what is referred to as ‘grapes’ at that time of year. No need to elaborate more than saying ‘grapes’ since if the other person doesn’t understand, they aren’t from our town, North East, PA (which is the most northwestern town in PA, figure that out if you can!)
This looks like a good design for when I have the time to do punch needle embroidery as I too have a new punch needle set to try.
Thank you for your splendid articles and commentaries!! Going to treat myself to some of the Japanese needles as I think my 25+ stash are not to be relied upon!! Can you tell me please if I should use wool felt to keep my needles I or will polyester felt be OK? Your needle roll is just the thing I need ! Thank you Gillian
I think the point of the wool felt block is the lanolin from the wool felt, to help preserve the needles. Polyester or acrylic felt doesn’t have that advantage. Hope that helps!
I love all of you news letters. I have use a snowflake to try out the stitches. I’m 72 yrs old and I enjoyed embroidery and cross stitching and crochet. I did some t=towels for
christmas for my daughter in law and my futher daughter in law. I hope they like them. your newspaper was a help.
sharron scott