Viking longship with a striped sail hand embroidery pattern

Easy · 4 colors · 2 kinds of stitch

Viking longship with a striped sail: preview of the stitched design

A longship seen from the side, both ends alike, carries a striped sail and seven round shields hung along its side. The hull, with a scroll at each end, the sail and the rims of the shields are outlined in stem stitch and the three waves are stem stitch; the stripes of the sail, the mast, the yard (the pole the sail hangs from) and the shield bosses, the round studs at the middle of the shields, are satin stitch.

Size and details

Easy. In a hoop of 6 inches or less: short satin stitches, no shading; in a larger hoop the widest satin stitches are long.

4 colors of floss and 2 kinds of stitch:

The stitched size and the widest satin stitch, by hoop
Hoop	Inches	Centimeters	Satin stitch up to
3 in (8 cm)	1.8 × 1.6 in	4.6 × 4.1 cm	1/8 in (3 mm)
4 in (10 cm)	2.7 × 2.4 in	6.9 × 6.1 cm	3/16 in (5 mm)
5 in (13 cm)	3.6 × 3.2 in	9.1 × 8.1 cm	1/4 in (6 mm)
6 in (15 cm)	4.4 × 4 in	11.2 × 10.2 cm	5/16 in (8 mm)
8 in (20 cm)	6.2 × 5.6 in	15.7 × 14.2 cm	7/16 in (11 mm)

The pattern is drawn inside a circle about half an inch (1.3 cm) smaller all around than the hoop.

What you need

DMC 3781 Dark Mocha BrownMast, hull outline, outlines of the shields, sail outline and yard
DMC 304 Medium RedRed shield bosses and sail stripes
DMC 3852 Very Dark StrawGold shield bosses
DMC 3755 Baby BlueWaves

The floss is six-strand cotton; the stitch guide says how many strands to use. You also need a hoop, an embroidery needle (a size 7 to 9 suits two or three strands) and plain cotton or linen fabric. To frame the piece in its hoop, cut a square 3 inches (8 cm) wider than the hoop: a 9 inch (23 cm) square for a 6 inch hoop.

Stitch guide

Satin stitch 2 strandsMast, shield bosses, sail stripes, yard
Stem stitch 2 or 3 strandsHull outline, outlines of the shields, sail outline, waves

Getting it onto your fabric

The PDF holds the pattern twice at actual size: once as drawn, and once mirrored for an iron-on transfer pen. Print it at 100% with scaling off and check the one-inch square (25.4 mm) with a ruler before you trace. How to transfer a pattern explains tracing, carbon paper and the other ways. The files are under Downloads.