Baby Raccoon with a Desk Fan Cross Stitch Pattern

About this raccoon cross stitch pattern

A baby raccoon sits on the floor in a white T-shirt and blue shorts, face tipped up toward a green desk fan, with pale gray lines of moving air between them. It’s drawn side-on, so you see the black-ringed tail stretched out behind, the dark mask around one eye and a pink blush on the cheek. The fan is the old-fashioned kind, with a round wire guard, a curved stand and a cord trailing off the right edge.

The design is long and low, nearly twice as wide as it is tall, so it fits over a desk, above a door or along a shelf. It’s a summer joke anyone who has sat in front of a fan on a hot day will recognize. The Capybara on a Beach Towel is another hot-weather animal, the Baby Raccoon with a Cookie is a second raccoon in the same friendly style, and our summer round-up has more warm-weather designs.

What you need

• Fabric: 14-count Aida in white, cut to at least 19“ x 13“ (3“ around the design for hooping and framing).
• Thread: 13 DMC colors, about 13 skeins in total, stitched with two strands. The main colors are 966 Baby Green – Medium (1,225 stitches), 841 Beige Brown – Light (1,049) and 08 Driftwood – Dark (989).
• Needle: a size 24 tapestry needle.
• Stitches: full cross stitches only, with no backstitch.

Difficulty and stitching time

It’s rated Intermediate for its width and its outlines rather than its stitch count. At 7,170 stitches it takes roughly 72 to 120 hours at a steady 60 to 100 stitches an hour, but the fan’s wire guard is a web of thin lines one stitch wide, and those need careful counting. More than half the fabric (54.5%) stays bare, so there’s no background to fill.

Tips for stitching this pattern

• Stitch the fan guard in 319 first. The wire guard, stand and blade edges are 937 stitches of 319 Pistachio Green – Very Dark. Once that frame is in, the 1,225 stitches of 966 Baby Green – Medium and the 107 of 502 Blue Green just fill the gaps between the lines.
• Keep the two raccoon browns apart. 841 Beige Brown – Light and 08 Driftwood – Dark sit side by side across the head, body and tail rings. Label them before you start, because they’re close enough to mix up in dim light.
• Leave the air lines and blush for last. The moving air is 762 Pearl Gray – Very Light, a pale color that disappears into white Aida, and the cheek blush is only 29 stitches of 758 Terra Cotta – Very Light. Both are easier to place once the shapes around them are finished.

Size, fabric and framing

On 14-count Aida the finished design measures 12.5“ x 6.4“ (31.8 x 16.3 cm). On 16-count it comes out at 10.9“ x 5.6“, and on 18-count at 9.7“ x 5.0“. For the 14-count version, a 12“ x 16“ frame hung landscape leaves room for a mat.

The long shape also suits a wide shelf frame propped against the wall, or a fabric panel sewn onto the front of a cushion.

What’s in the free PDF

• A cover page and a one-page overview with a preview of the design
• The chart, split across as many printable pages as you choose, in color or black and white, with a symbol for every DMC color, center lines, a mini-map showing which part of the design each page covers and a color key on every page
• The thread list: DMC number, color name, number of stitches and skeins to buy for each color
• The finished size on 11-, 14-, 16-, 18- and 28-count Aida