Autumn Leaf Floating on Water Embroidery Design, Instant Download

Had this concept sitting in a sketchbook for a while before I finally digitised it last spring. Its a burnt orange maple leaf with big pointed tips, the kind you find in late october when theyre at peak colour. The leaf sits on a teal circular ripple like it just landed two seconds ago. Below and to the right theres a smaller companion leaf, already darker, already settling. The whole image has that held-breath feeling of a moment just after something fell.

Only 4 colours which is unusual for something this detailed. Burnt orange, amber gold, teal, black. The complexity is all in the stitching not the colour count. my workhorse software ran directional fills through the leaf in short-angle passes to get the texture variation across the surface, and the concentric circles underneath are done in an open fill so they read lighter than the leaf. The veins are satin columns, tight and precise.

Comes across nine size files spanning 3.51 to 7.51 inch tall. Stitches sit relatively low at 15,446 minimum, 39,961 maximum, so its accessible on lighter-weight fabrics where denser designs would struggle. A customer wrote me earlier this year asking for the 5-inch on a linen table runner for a thanksgiving centrepiece setup, said it looked exactly right against the natural fabric colour.

On natural linen or cream canvas this design is genuinely beautiful. Use a topping on woven fabric to keep the fill stitches from sinking into the weave. The teal reads as a cool accent against the warm orange leaf and the contrast is clean. Avoid black or very dark fabric, the teal circles disappear and you lose the floating illusion. Tearaway works fine at the lower stitch counts. Skip cutaway unless youre on a stretch base. Text me if you want a ripple-circles-only version, some people use that as a repeating border on table linens.