By Cross Stitch Library · September 20, 2026
A red fox curled into a sleeping circle amid a wreath of oak leaves and acorns — a richly shaded nature-illustration design in warm fall colors.
Your pattern is at the end of this page, right after the stitching guide below.
A red fox curls nose-to-tail into a perfect sleeping circle, entirely ringed by a wreath of oak leaves and acorns in deep autumn color. Unlike most of this batch, the composition itself is circular, making it a strong choice for a round hoop finish rather than a rectangular frame.
This is a fall-decor piece first and an animal portrait second — the wreath framing means it reads as seasonal wall art even from across a room, before the sleeping fox at the center comes into focus. It’s a natural fit for anyone who rotates their stitched decor with the seasons, or as a housewarming gift timed for autumn. Stitch it alongside our Hedgehog in a Knit Sweater for a matching pair of cozy fall-themed woodland pieces. It’s the hoop-shaped option in our fox pattern round-up.
DMC 310 (Black) and 920 (Copper - Medium) cover 7,997 of the 18,869 total stitches, but the real difficulty is the leaf wreath itself — five distinct autumn shades (3853, 3777, 3854, 830, 833) weave in and out of each other around the full circumference, and losing your place partway around means the wreath’s color rhythm breaks visibly. Work it in quarters, treating the wreath like a clock face, rather than trying to circle it in one continuous pass.
Stitch the fox first, then build the leaf wreath outward from the center — finishing the central subject before tackling the repeating leaf pattern gives you a fixed reference point to count outward from, which matters a lot on a circular border where a single miscount early on throws off the symmetry all the way around. See our botanical pattern roundup for more nature-illustration-style designs, or our framing your finished piece guide for advice on mounting a circular composition like this one.
Choose your paper size and color or black & white, then download the Red Fox Curled in Autumn Leaves PDF chart and thread list — free, no sign-up.
