Snowflake Christmas sweater hand embroidery pattern

Easy · 3 colors · 5 kinds of stitch

Snowflake Christmas sweater: preview of the stitched design

A Christmas sweater is laid flat with its long sleeves down, the same left and right. The sweater, the neck, the cuffs and the hem are outlined in navy stem stitch, with ribs of navy back stitch in the neck, cuffs and hem. On the chest is one teal stem stitch snowflake of six arms, with a French knot in the middle and at the tip of each arm. Above the hem a teal chain row runs over six red lozenges, and each sleeve has a teal chain row over a red stripe above its cuff. The chain rows are chain stitch and the lozenges and stripes are satin stitch.

Size and details

Easy. In a hoop of 6 inches or less: line stitches, chain stitch and French knots, with some short satin stitches; in a larger hoop the widest satin stitches are long.

3 colors of floss and 5 kinds of stitch:

The stitched size and the widest satin stitch, by hoop
Hoop	Inches	Centimeters	Satin stitch up to
3 in (8 cm)	1.7 × 1.3 in	4.3 × 3.3 cm	1/8 in (3 mm)
4 in (10 cm)	2.5 × 1.9 in	6.4 × 4.8 cm	3/16 in (5 mm)
5 in (13 cm)	3.4 × 2.6 in	8.6 × 6.6 cm	1/4 in (6 mm)
6 in (15 cm)	4.2 × 3.2 in	10.7 × 8.1 cm	5/16 in (8 mm)
8 in (20 cm)	5.9 × 4.5 in	15 × 11.4 cm	7/16 in (11 mm)

In a 3 or 4 inch hoop the French knots are drawn smaller than about 2 mm (a little over 1/16 in). Use one strand of floss for them there, or choose a larger hoop.

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 BlueSweater outline, outlines of the cuffs, ribs of the cuffs, neck outline, ribs of the neck, hem outline and ribs of the hem
DMC 3809 Very Dark TurquoiseChain rows of the sleeves, snowflake, snowflake knots and chain row of the body
DMC 304 Medium RedStripes of the sleeves and lozenges of the body

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 strandsSweater outline, outlines of the cuffs, neck outline, snowflake, hem outline
Chain stitch 2 or 3 strandsChain rows of the sleeves, chain row of the body
Satin stitch 2 strandsStripes of the sleeves, lozenges of the body
Back stitch 2 strandsRibs of the cuffs, ribs of the neck, ribs of the hem
French knot 2 strands, two wrapsSnowflake knots

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.