Free Hand Embroidery Pattern for August – Gladiolus Flower

Welcome to this month’s Freebie Friday

The August Birth Flower is Gladiolus.

The Birthday Flower for August is the gorgeous Gladiolus. They are associated with strength and honour and come in a variety of beautiful colors.

Their elegant trumpet-shaped blossoms grow in double rows along the stem but for the purpose of this pattern I decided to focus on a few individual blossoms rather than the whole flower as they are so pretty on their own.

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Materials required…

Fabric – 10×10 inch ( a 100% cotton is a great choice for a lot of embroidery.)
Calico – I use this as a stabiliser behind my main fabric when stitching.
DMC Embroidery Floss, in colours #3803/#3727
Frixion Pen for transferring the design.
Needle and Scissors.
5 or 6 inch embroidery hoop

You will also need the Pattern Template…

Gladiolus Pattern Template – available from the link at the bottom of this post.

Trace the hand embroidery design on to your fabric, pop in an embroidery hoop and…

Get Stitching…

Here’s a close up of 1 of the 3 flowers. For stitching, I used DMC thread and stitched with 2 strands throughout.

How to stitch the Flowers…

In your main flower color…

Start by Stem stitching the entire outer edge of the flower.

Back Stitch a centre line on the 5 lower petals.

Straight Stitch the tip of the largest petal and in small areas of the centre of the lower petals to add a bit of texture.

In Black, split stitch the 3 stems of the stamens and stitch a long chain stitch for each of the tips.

In a lighter colour, straight stitch the lower part of the large petal and around various parts of the other petals (see photo).

Complete the other 3 blossoms in the same way to complete your August Birth Flower Pattern.

Alternative Ideas for embroidering the design…

You could stitch them with a simple back stitch outline throughout or you could make them really stand out by needle painting and adding in some lovely shading for a more realistic look.

If you know of someone with a Birthday in August, you could stitch a single flower on to some gorgeous coloured wool felt and make it in to a brooch for a really special gift.

Embroidery Stitch Ideas

If you need some inspiration or a bit of a ‘How To’ for different stitches, you can take a look at my Hand Embroidery Stitch Guide to get you started.

If you are more of a visual learner, there is a FREE Beginner Hand Embroidery course run by Charles and Elin which you can access here.

If you like to learn through books then the ones I personally recommend as I have them myself and have found them invaluable and easy to follow are The Embroidery Stitch Bible and The RSN Book of Embroidery.

As always, let me see how you get on. You can tag me in on your makes on Instagram and Facebook with @stitchdoodlesdesign, or you can send me photos at nicola@stitchdoodles.com and I will include them here with your permission. I lovelovelove to see your photos!