With autumn upon us, here’s a simple seasonal embroidery pattern featuring a leafy border with acorns.
Modifying a design from a very old publication now in the public domain, I made it into a squared corner, so that it might work better for table linens or kitchen linens. Think: cloth napkins for the Thanksgiving table, the corner of a flour sack towel to give you kitchen some autumn flavor, maybe enlarged on a tablecloth?
Here’s the pattern:
Some stitching suggestions:
Think of this as a good opportunity to dig through your stash!
Use simple outline stitches and multiple colors on the leaves – oranges, yellows, browns, reds, even greens – maybe even some variegated threads or overdyed (although caution with overdyed, if you’re creating something that needs laundering. Test the threads first to make sure they don’t run.)
Use a darker brown on the cap of the acorn, and fill it in with close French knots or a chain stitch filling, so that there’s a bit of texture to the cap. Maybe use a stem stitch filling on the nut, or, if the pattern is printed small and the acorns are tiny, a padded satin stitch?
Printable
Here’s the handy dandy PDF printable for the acorns and leaves embroidery pattern:
Acorns & Leaves Embroidery Pattern (PDF)
The design prints at about 6.5″ square. You can also take the horizontal line in the pattern or any of the inside clusters of leaves and acorns and work them as a repeat, if you’re working a larger design.
Wouldn’t this pattern look lovely on a pair of pillow cases?
C.B.
Hey, Clara – I think it would look great on pillow cases. You should make someone a set for Christmas!!
I am new to embroidery and do not know a lot about the craft. I would love to have some of your patterns but I am not clear on how to transfer them to my fabric. I need a 101 lesson on how to get the design from the computer to my fabric, please.
Hi, Debbie –
You can find all kinds of articles here on Needle 'n Thread about transferring your embroidery pattern!
Just look under Tips and Tricks for Hand Embroidery in the right hand column under Editor's Floss. There are quite a few articles listed there for beginners, too.
Later this week, I'll be posting an article on transferring a design, as I start the Long and Short stitch shading series. The first post (about supplies) was posted today, if you want to check it out. Just click the "Home" link above to go to the most recent posts here.
Hope that helps!
MC
I love this acorn border but I cannot get it to resize without losing resolution. Do you have it as a larger file?
Perhaps I’m a bit too BC in embroidery, but with acorns the leaves should be oak leaves and these are definitely not oak leaves of any kind. By the way, “BC” means botanically correct.
As everyone knows, leaves in Nature have an extraordinary variety of shapes and it is rather pleasant to see the correct leaf shape accompany a flower or a fruit. If we make all leaves identical as if they were not very important, where’s the fun? Think of the leaves of asparagus, of nasturtium, of dandelion, holly, mistletoe, fir etc. There’s material for endless embroidering pleasure with only leaves.
Omg i love this pattern same with my grandma 🙂 i made her a pillow set and put this on them! she though they were soo cute 😛 thanks a bunch for putting these up here. I also used a ton of other ones for my boy friend 🙂 he like the hand made stuff better then that bought stuff 🙂 thank you soo much for putting this stuff for others to use :).
Just learning embroidery and am amazed at the help on this website. Thank you
I’m thinking of embroidering this along the neckline of one of my scrub tops. The top is a light tan color and I’ve already added red-orange pockets and trim around the sleeves. This pattern is the perfect thing to tie it all together!
Thanks, Mary, for this pretty acorns and leaves pattern. Did you realize that enlarged slightly it could be used for a continuous line quilting pattern? Very useful for machine quilting on a home sewing machine.
Hi Mary,
Thanks for posting this simplr but effective pattern. I have a small plain white table cloth. Ihink this pattern would work on each corner with some autumn motifs on the top.
Sue