Sleepy Bunny in a Nightcap Cross Stitch Pattern

About this bunny cross stitch pattern

A tall brown bunny stands with its eyes closed and its paws tucked into the pockets of an olive-green cardigan with red buttons. Its long ears hang down past its shoulders, its cheeks are pink, and it wears a slouchy blue knitted nightcap with a little yellow star dangling from the tip. Blue jeans and small brown feet finish the figure at the bottom.

The closed eyes and the nightcap make it a bedtime picture, the kind that hangs above a crib or a child’s bed. The Elf Child and Owl on the Moon has the same sleepy mood if you want a pair; our nursery round-up has more designs for a child’s room.

What you need

• Fabric: 14-count Aida in white, cut to at least 15“ x 20“ (3“ around the design for hooping and framing).
• Thread: 12 DMC colors, about 14 skeins in total, stitched with two strands. The main colors are 733 Olive Green – Medium (3,651 stitches), 3810 Turquoise – Dark (2,920) and 310 Black (2,099).
• 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 size, not its colors. With only 12 colors it’s one of the easier charts to follow, but at 15,379 stitches it takes roughly 154 to 256 hours at a steady 60 to 100 stitches an hour. Most of that time goes into large fills: the cardigan, the jeans and the hat.

Tips for stitching this pattern

• Buy two skeins of the cardigan and hat colors. 733 Olive Green – Medium (3,651 stitches) and 3810 Turquoise – Dark (2,920) each need two skeins. Buying them together keeps the dye lot the same across the cardigan and the hat.
• Fill the cardigan in rows, not patches. The olive cardigan takes up more of the chart than anything else. Working it row by row from one side to the other keeps the stitch tension even, so the large block doesn’t look patchy.
• Watch the two turquoises on the hat and jeans. 3810 Turquoise – Dark and 597 Turquoise (1,843 stitches) sit next to each other to make the knit ribs on the hat. Thread them on separate needles and work the ribs stripe by stripe.

Size, fabric and framing

On 14-count Aida the finished design measures 8.4“ x 13.1“ (21.3 x 33.3 cm). On 16-count it comes out at 7.4“ x 11.5“, and on 18-count at 6.6“ x 10.2“. A 12“ x 16“ frame hung portrait leaves room for a mat.

Its tall, narrow shape also suits a narrow wall beside a door or between two shelves.

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