Fawn Shaman with Staff Cross Stitch Pattern

About this fawn cross stitch pattern

The fawn wears a rough patchwork cloak and a headdress of twigs that look like small antlers, and grips a crooked wooden staff hung with a glowing jack-o’-lantern lantern. Two small ghosts drift at its side. Its huge eyes and pink cheeks keep the whole thing sweet rather than spooky.

It sits between woodland animal and autumn fantasy, so it suits a fall mantel as well as an October display. With the Wee Celtic Druid and the Woodland Badger Wizard it makes a trio of little forest spellcasters; all three are in the fantasy collection. It’s one of the bigger designs in our cute patterns round-up.

What you need

• Fabric: 14-count Aida in white, cut to at least 17“ x 19“ (3“ around the design for hooping and framing).
• Thread: 15 DMC colors, about 16 skeins in total, stitched with two strands. The main colors are 310 Black (3,121 stitches), 822 Beige Gray – Light (2,245), 167 Yellow Beige – Very Dark (2,052) and 648 Beaver Gray – Light (1,927).
• Needle: a size 24 tapestry needle.
• Stitches: full cross stitches only, with no backstitch.

Difficulty and stitching time

It’s rated Intermediate. Fifteen colors is a modest palette, but black does a lot of work: 3,121 of the 14,701 stitches trace the outline, the eyes and the shadows of the cloak. A drifted outline stitch is the most visible mistake on a design this reliant on crisp lines.

Expect roughly 150 to 245 hours at a steady 60 to 100 stitches an hour.

Tips for stitching this pattern

• Follow the outline as continuous lines. Work 310 Black in short connected runs, the way you’d trace a line drawing, instead of jumping between scattered black squares. The eyes and the cloak edges stay smoother that way.
• Keep the cloak’s neutrals apart. 822 Beige Gray – Light, 648 Beaver Gray – Light and 746 Off White sit close together in the patchwork; label them on your floss card.
• Save the lantern glow for last. The jack-o’-lantern uses tiny amounts of 725 Topaz – Medium Light and 780 Topaz – Ultra Very Dark. Adding them at the end keeps that small warm spot bright against the finished cloak.

Size, fabric and framing

On 14-count Aida the finished design measures 10.8“ x 12.9“ (27.4 x 32.8 cm). On 16-count it comes out at 9.4“ x 11.3“, and on 18-count at 8.4“ x 10.1“. For the 14-count version, a 14“ x 18“ frame leaves room for a mat.

A rustic wood frame suits the twigs and patchwork, and keeps it at home on an autumn shelf.

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