Free Woodland Animal Hand Embroidery Patterns

Checkout this collection of free, pdf printable Woodland Animal hand embroidery patterns! These patterns are simple, which means that you can customize them and make them as easy or as complex as you would like! These woodland animals are cute, fun, and whimsical- making them the perfect decoration for any nursery or toy room!

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This collection of woodland animal embroidery patterns was inspired by two adorable quilts that my son’s grandmothers made him when he was born.

I loved the cute and playful animals that danced across the surface of the quilts. So, when I began to think about what nursery decorations I wanted, I immediately thought of those little animals!

The bear and fox pattern are currently hanging above his crib, along with a customized name & birth date hoop in the center.

These patterns ended up being the perfect decoration for his little nursery!

Notes on the Patterns

I create my embroidery patterns by hand with a good ol’ pencil and paper. This means that the lines on the patterns may not be perfectly straight or symmetrical.

I chose to do it this way for 2 reasons:

1) I believe that hand embroidery is more fun when it isn’t absolutely perfect. A hand-drawn pattern is more likely to bring out little, fun quirks in the final product. It’s these quirks that make your final piece of artwork look genuine and unique!

2) Digitally created patterns tend to be fairly basic and easy to follow. I don’t think that this is bad by any means, however it can prevent the embroiderer from creating a product that is solely unique to them. I find that hand-drawn patterns are more likely to inspire a creative and unique design.

Download, Print, & Create!

Choose your favorite animals from the list below! All six patterns come as a free pdf download. Once the download is saved to your computer, you can print it out onto any standard US letter sized paper.

Most of these woodland animal embroidery patterns automatically download to fill a whole sheet of standard US letter paper. So, you will most likely need to resize the pattern to make it your preferred size.

On most computers, this can easily be done by adjusting the scale of the image in the print settings. (e.g.- download image -> print -> advanced settings -> scale).

Next, transfer the pattern to your fabric. If you would like more information on how to easily do this, you can check out how I prefer to transfer pdf embroidery patterns here!

Stitch Suggestions

Each of these embroidery patterns are fairly simple, which means that you can get pretty creative with the stitching!

A back stitch, split stitch, or stem stitch would all be great options for tracing the lines on the embroidery pattern.

You may also choose to completely fill in the embroidery pattern (like I did)! In my personal patterns, I used a basic back stitch for both the outline of the pattern and as I filled it in.

However, it is important to note than an excessive amount of floss stitched into the fabric may cause it to develop little divots on the pattern. To prevent this, begin filling out the pattern on the innermost part of the animal, and then slowly work your way out as you go.

Recommended thread colors

You can choose any thread color that suits your fancy! However, if you would like more direction, you can find the thread colors that I personally used and prefer below:

Did you use any of these embroidery patterns? If so, I would love to see your artwork! Email me a picture of your creation at autumn@handmadbyautumn.com or tag/dm me on Instagram at handmadebyautumn!