Pumpkin King Portrait Cross Stitch Pattern

About this pumpkin cross stitch pattern

It’s laid out like a formal Victorian portrait: an oval frame, a centered sitter and stiff, square shoulders, except the sitter has a carved pumpkin where his head should be, with a pleased, glowing grin. The suit is black with gray folds over a white shirt and tie.

The joke works best hung where a real family photo would go, among picture frames on a mantel or a gallery wall. At 6,273 stitches, it’s one of the quicker Halloween designs to finish. For more jack-o’-lanterns, see the Black Kitten with Jack-o’-Lanterns; our witchy Halloween round-up has more.

What you need

• Fabric: 14-count Aida in white, cut to at least 12“ x 15“ (3“ around the design for hooping and framing).
• Thread: 7 DMC colors, about 8 skeins in total, stitched with two strands. The main colors are 741 Tangerine – Medium (3,334 stitches), 400 Mahogany – Dark (1,151) and 310 Black (921).
• Needle: a size 24 tapestry needle.
• Stitches: full cross stitches only, with no backstitch.

Difficulty and stitching time

It’s rated Beginner. Seven colors in big single-color areas means very little thread changing: 741 Tangerine – Medium alone is 3,334 of the 6,273 stitches, covering both the pumpkin and the oval frame. It’s longer than a tiny first sampler, roughly 65 to 105 hours at a steady 60 to 100 stitches an hour, which makes it a good first “real” piece.

Tips for stitching this pattern

• Start with the oval frame. It’s symmetrical, so count it out from the center line and check both sides match before going further; one stitch off there throws the whole portrait off-center.
• Stitch the glowing face before the orange. The eyes and mouth are 142 stitches of 744 Yellow – Pale inside the pumpkin. Put them in first and fill the orange around them, rather than trying to leave holes the right shape.
• Use light fabric. The suit’s folds are 535 Ash Gray – Very Light on 310 Black. They read clearly on white Aida, but on dark fabric the gray would disappear.

Size, fabric and framing

On 14-count Aida the finished design measures 6.0“ x 8.1“ (15.2 x 20.6 cm). On 16-count it comes out at 5.2“ x 7.1“, and on 18-count at 4.7“ x 6.3“. For the 14-count version, an 8.5“ x 11“ frame leaves room for a mat.

An ornate gold or dark antique-style frame completes the old-portrait joke.

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