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I've been hard at work on this St. Patrick's Day Embroidery Design...it's one of my favorite hoop art pieces, so far. It's very simple, but has a fun, colorful look to it. This entire embroidery design only has two stitches throughout. See the tutorial (and grab the free pattern) for this Free St. Patrick's Day Embroidery Design below.  

Well, hoop-dee-doo and hoop-dee-dee! 
Another hoop piece for you from me. ;) 

All silliness aside, I'm super happy with how this St. Patrick's Day Embroidery Design came out. I had several designs running through my head for a bit, and then after my newsletter freebie from a couple of week's back, I duplicated that concept into embroidery design. See how it came together (and grab the free PDF pattern) below. 

Free St. Patrick's Day Embroidery Design

I had a sweet reader email me a couple of weeks back after I posted my St. Patrick's Day Coloring Pages. She let me know that the four-leaf clover is actually not the proper clover for St. Patrick's Day. In fact, a three-leaf one is the traditional one. So,  I switched gears and went with the three-leaf clover on this embroidery design. We're still new to being Irish, y'all. My husband's ancestry tests revealed that he is a surprising 40% Irish. We truly didn't expect that...but have now embraced all things from Ireland (that was the biggest percentage for him...so it's his most prominent country). 

BTW: if you're new to embroidery, this book is perfection. I'm only about one year into my embroidery design fun and this book is my constant companion. While the designs are nice, I love it for its basic stitch tutorials. Grab this 500 Simply Charming Designs for Embroidery book on Amazon.

St. Patrick's Day Embroidery Design Instructions

Supplies:

• 1-14" quilt or embroidery hoop (this is a larger than usual hoop...but the pattern would also work in a 10" hoop or 12" hoop, if you prefer). Also, I totally grab these at thrift stores all the time for a dollar or less.
• white fabric for your hoop (I grabbed one with a light damask design on it in a darker shade of white...just for some added interest)
• erasable pens (I very much prefer a pen that dissolves with steam from the iron for embroidery projects!)
• Grab my favorite Pilot FriXion Pens here on Amazon. They're truly the BEST for embroidery.
• green felt sheet
• For my embroidery floss, I had a multipack of DMC floss that I pulled all of the colors out of the rainbow out of. This is the pack I used on Amazon. 
• Free St. Patrick's Day Embroidery Design Shamrock Pattern (download available below).

Free Pattern:

• Download here via Droplr (readers' favorite method).
• Download here via Dropbox.
• Download here via Google Drive.

Directions:

• I started by placing my white fabric in my hoop. 
• Then, I used the pattern to trace my shamrock onto my felt. I use my Pilot Frixion Pens to trace onto felt (as I mentioned above, these pens are everything...they erase with the steam of your iron). 
• Then I cut out my shamrock and put a dab of fabric glue on the back of it to attach it to my white fabric (I just eyeballed it to center it). The glue is just to make it easier on you while you stitch the shamrock into place. It doesn't take much at all. 

Please note: if you don't cut your shamrock out perfectly, your stitching will hide the rough edges.

• I used white embroidery floss and did a simple blanket stitch around the shamrock. Future Girl has two great tutorials on a simple embroidery blanket stitch, if you need them.

• The trickiest part was the stem of the shamrock. I was mindful of not allowing the stitches to touch one another in the middle of the stem.

• After my shamrock was completely stitched into place, I started laying out the lines for my rainbow pattern. 
• I used my sewing ruler and went at a diagonal down the entire piece...spacing lines out a quarter of an inch a part from one another. 
• Again, I used the Frixion Pens for this...they erased with the steam of my iron easily once I was finished.

Here's a closer shot (above) of how my lines looked. 

Long story...but I took the above photo in the rain, hence the droplets everywhere. I was stitching at my kids' practices and needed the pic!

Then the fun begins. Or monotony...however you choose to go with it! 

• I did a simple backstitch on every line using rainbow colors of floss. I'm pretty sure I have perfected my backstitch at this point in time, y'all. The Treasurie Blog has a nice backstitch tutorial, if you need it. 

• If you're wanting something a bit less daunting, you could certainly space your lines out at a half an inch a part to make the work go a bit quicker.  

After I ran my iron over the entire piece to remove my pen lines, I felt like it needed something a bit more. The fantastic embroidery queen, Bev, from Flamingo Toes often puts pom poms around her hoops. 

• I had a big spool of red pom poms, so I hot glued them around the perimeter...and I think it did the trick. 
• To clean up the backside of my hoop, I cut a large white felt circle (tracing my hoop onto it first) and then added a few dabs of fabric glue to secure it to the back of the hoop...to hide all of my untidy floss ends.

If you love this St. Patrick's Day Embroidery Design, you'll probably love my Mother's Day Hoop Art, too. You can see it in its video below:

Happy Hooping!

Hope you enjoy this St. Patrick's Day Embroidery Design.