Patchwork heart hand embroidery pattern

Intermediate · 2 colors · 2 kinds of stitch

Patchwork heart: preview of the stitched design

This is a patchwork heart: the heart is one line of chain stitch, and inside it a checkerboard of squares runs right to the heart’s edge, as if the heart were cut from pieced cloth. Every other square is filled with plain satin stitch, row by row laid across and then up and down, and the squares between are bare cloth. The squares are small, so every satin stitch is short and easy to keep neat.

Size and details

Intermediate. Satin stitch over about a sixth of the cloth in a 6 inch hoop; from a 5 inch hoop up some of the satin stitches are long.

2 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 × 1.4 in	4.1 × 3.6 cm	3/16 in (5 mm)
4 in (10 cm)	2.4 × 2.2 in	6.1 × 5.6 cm	1/4 in (6 mm)
5 in (13 cm)	3.2 × 2.9 in	8.1 × 7.4 cm	3/8 in (10 mm)
6 in (15 cm)	4 × 3.6 in	10.2 × 9.1 cm	7/16 in (11 mm)
8 in (20 cm)	5.6 × 5.1 in	14.2 × 13 cm	5/8 in (16 mm)

In an 8 inch hoop the widest satin stitch shape is 5/8 in (16 mm) across. Satin stitches longer than about 12 mm (just under 1/2 in) tend to work loose: divide the shape into sections, or work it in long and short stitch.

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

What you need

DMC 3350 Ultra Dark Dusty RosePatches
DMC 304 Medium RedHeart

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 strandsPatches
Chain stitch 2 or 3 strandsHeart

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.