New home key in a laurel heart hand embroidery pattern

Easy · 5 colors · 2 kinds of stitch

New home key in a laurel heart: preview of the stitched design

A key whose handle, its bow, is a cottage stands inside a heart drawn by two stems of laurel. The stems rise from a small red heart at the point and close in the cleft above the roof. The cottage has navy walls, a red roof, a gold heart in the gable, a red door and two gold windows, each with a red window box under it. Below it the navy shaft runs down through a gold collar, past a navy bit, a tooth of the key, at each side, to a gold tip. The stems are dark green stem stitch, and everything else is satin stitch: each leaf has its halves slanted to the center vein, one dark green and one light green.

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.

5 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)	1.6 × 1.7 in	4.1 × 4.3 cm	1/8 in (3 mm)
4 in (10 cm)	2.3 × 2.6 in	5.8 × 6.6 cm	3/16 in (5 mm)
5 in (13 cm)	3.1 × 3.5 in	7.9 × 8.9 cm	1/4 in (6 mm)
6 in (15 cm)	3.9 × 4.4 in	9.9 × 11.2 cm	5/16 in (8 mm)
8 in (20 cm)	5.5 × 6.1 in	14 × 15.5 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 986 Very Dark Forest GreenStems and darker half of each leaf
DMC 320 Medium Pistachio GreenLighter half of each leaf
DMC 304 Medium RedHeart at the point, roof, door and window boxes
DMC 336 Navy BlueWalls, bits and shaft
DMC 3852 Very Dark StrawHeart in the gable, windows, collar and tip

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

Stem stitch 2 or 3 strandsStems
Satin stitch 2 strandsLeaves (each half slanted to the center vein, in its own color), heart at the point, walls, roof, heart in the gable, door, windows, window boxes, bits, shaft, collar, tip

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.