Child Hugging a Highland Cow Cross Stitch Pattern

About this Highland cow cross stitch pattern

A child in an orange sweater, patched trousers and boots wraps both arms around a shaggy Highland calf, and the two of them lean in with the same closed-eye smile. The cow’s coat is built from several graduated browns, which gives it real texture with no backstitch at all.

It’s made for a farmhouse nursery, a countryside guest room or anyone who has hugged a real Highland cow and wants to remember it. The warm palette reads as home decor rather than a cartoon. For a calf on its own, see the Baby Highland Cow in Autumn Leaves; for a second child-and-animal piece, the Child and Puppy Best Friends. See how it compares with other big designs in our large patterns round-up.

What you need

• Fabric: 14-count Aida in white, cut to at least 17“ x 21“ (3“ around the design for hooping and framing).
• Thread: 16 DMC colors, about 19 skeins in total, stitched with two strands. The main colors are 310 Black (4,685 stitches), 434 Brown – Light (2,536), 3863 Mocha Beige – Medium (2,315) and 436 Tan (2,214).
• Needle: a size 24 tapestry needle.
• Stitches: full cross stitches only, with no backstitch.

Difficulty and stitching time

It’s rated Intermediate: the difficulty comes from color blending, not technique. Black and Brown – Light alone cover 7,221 of the 21,244 stitches, and several browns sit right next to each other across the cow’s coat, so careful color placement matters more than on a flatter design.

It’s a long project, roughly 210 to 350 hours at a steady 60 to 100 stitches an hour.

Tips for stitching this pattern

• Work the coat in horizontal bands. The browns in the fur (300, 434, 612, 869 and 945) repeat in overlapping patches. Stitching a full row of one shade before the next cuts down on thread changes and shows a misplaced stitch before it’s buried.
• Label the browns. 434 Brown – Light, 436 Tan and 437 Tan – Light are close in tone; keep them on a labeled floss card so they don’t get swapped.
• Finish the dark outline areas before the light ones. 310 Black outlines both figures, so stitch it before the pale skin tones beside it to keep dark fibers out of the light areas.

Size, fabric and framing

On 14-count Aida the finished design measures 10.8“ x 14.6“ (27.4 x 37.1 cm). On 16-count it comes out at 9.4“ x 12.8“, and on 18-count at 8.4“ x 11.4“. For the 14-count version, a 14“ x 18“ frame leaves room for a mat.

A natural wood frame suits the farmhouse colors. Read our guide to planning a large cross stitch project before buying fabric for a piece this size.

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