Penguin in a Top Hat and Puffer Vest Cross Stitch Pattern

About this penguin cross stitch pattern

A round black-and-white penguin stands facing you with its eyes squeezed shut in a happy grin. It wears a tall navy top hat with a white snowflake hanging off the brim, a quilted green puffer vest with three buttons, and baggy blue trousers dotted with white, with its orange feet sticking out at the bottom.

The snowflake and the puffer vest make it a winter picture without any Christmas imagery, so it can stay up from the first cold week until the snow melts. It pairs well with the Penguin in a Hawaiian Shirt as a summer-and-winter set; our winter round-up has more cold-weather designs.

What you need

• Fabric: 14-count Aida in white, cut to at least 13“ x 15“ (3“ around the design for hooping and framing).
• Thread: 24 DMC colors, about 24 skeins in total, stitched with two strands. The main colors are 334 Baby Blue – Medium (1,241 stitches), 992 Aquamarine – Light (1,062) and 310 Black (929).
• Needle: a size 24 tapestry needle.
• Stitches: full cross stitches only, with no backstitch.

Difficulty and stitching time

It’s rated Intermediate because of its shading. The vest uses three greens to look puffed up, and the trousers and hat each use several blues. At 7,357 stitches it takes roughly 74 to 123 hours at a steady 60 to 100 stitches an hour, and about 39% of the fabric stays bare around the figure.

Tips for stitching this pattern

• Stitch the trousers before the white dots. 334 Baby Blue – Medium (1,241 stitches) fills the trousers, and the polka dots are single stitches of B5200 Snow White. Leave the dot squares empty as you go, then add all the white at the end with a clean needle.
• Follow the vest’s quilting lines. 992 Aquamarine – Light (1,062 stitches) is the vest’s main color, and 3812 Seagreen – Very Dark (697) draws the stitched seams between the puffs. Doing the dark seam lines first makes each puff a small box to fill.
• Keep the face white bright. B5200 Snow White (713 stitches) is the penguin’s face and belly. Stitch the black 310 head (929 stitches) before it, and stitch the white with fresh thread so dark fibers don’t get pulled into it.

Size, fabric and framing

On 14-count Aida the finished design measures 6.9“ x 8.9“ (17.5 x 22.6 cm). On 16-count it comes out at 6.1“ x 7.8“, and on 18-count at 5.4“ x 6.9“. A 9“ x 12“ frame leaves room for a mat.

A pale blue mat picks up the trousers and makes a good winter frame.

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