Ship’s lantern hand embroidery pattern

Intermediate · 4 colors · 2 kinds of stitch

Ship’s lantern: preview of the stitched design

A ship’s lantern is seen from the front, with its bail, the carrying handle, raised over the top. The navy bail arches from the two ends of the gold hood over the gold chimney and its cap. Under the hood, the glass is outlined between two gold rims, with a guard wire on each side of the orange flame, which rises from a gold burner. Below the lower rim sit the red font, the tank that holds the oil, and a gold foot. The bail, the flame, the burner, the hood, the chimney, the chimney cap, the rims, the font and the foot are satin stitch; the glass outline and the guard wires are navy stem stitch.

Size and details

Intermediate. Long satin stitches from a 5 inch hoop up.

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)	0.9 × 1.6 in	2.3 × 4.1 cm	3/16 in (5 mm)
4 in (10 cm)	1.4 × 2.4 in	3.6 × 6.1 cm	1/4 in (6 mm)
5 in (13 cm)	1.8 × 3.2 in	4.6 × 8.1 cm	3/8 in (10 mm)
6 in (15 cm)	2.3 × 4 in	5.8 × 10.2 cm	7/16 in (11 mm)
8 in (20 cm)	3.2 × 5.7 in	8.1 × 14.5 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 336 Navy BlueBail, glass outline and guard wires
DMC 922 Light CopperFlame
DMC 3852 Very Dark StrawBurner, hood, chimney, chimney cap, rims and foot
DMC 304 Medium RedFont

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 strandsBail, flame, burner, hood, chimney, chimney cap, rims, font, foot
Stem stitch 2 or 3 strandsGlass outline, guard wires

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.