Apple and Pencil Embroidery Design, Instant Download

Red apple centered with a shiny cream highlight on the top right, the green leaf tucked just above the stem. Yellow pencil angled diagonally behind it, pink eraser block on top, silver ferrule ring separating the eraser from the wood. Nineteen colours total and you can tell the shading on the apple body goes from bright cherry red at the edges into a slightly deeper tone toward the back. Satin fill throughout, directional on the pencil barrel so it looks cylindrical not flat. Its one of those school designs that doesnt look clip-art cheap.

Biggest version at 6 inches hits about 42k stitches. Smallest is just over 17k at the 2.8-inch size. For a school-themed design with this many colours and shading levels, 42k is actually reasonable. A customer asked me in September to do 15 of the 4-inch centre on teacher aprons for the whole school staff and the digitising held up perfectly across every single hoop. Wont know until you try but Ive never had a complaint on the shading.

Use cutaway stabiliser on cotton twill or canvas because the density here is real. Tearaway will shift under 42k stitches at the larger sizes, dont risk it. Hoop the fabric firm. On woven cotton shirts the medium sizes, 3 to 4 inches, stitch out fast and the satin stays flat without drama. Use a sharp needle and change it halfway through a long run if youre doing batches.

Pop it on a white or cream cotton shirt left chest area and it reads as a proper teacher motif straight away. Works on a canvas tote aswell at 5 inches. Skip mid-tone fabrics like sage or dusty pink because the red apple needs a clean pale ground to stand out. Charcoal or navy backgrounds work if you go bold with the apple colour but test first on a scrap piece of the same fabric weight.