Braided Beauty Portrait Embroidery Design, Fashion Machine Embroidery Pattern, Instant Download

Spent a lot of time on the braid texture for this one because thats usually where portrait designs fall apart. The cornrow rows along the hairline are individual satin columns stitched in a chevron pattern that actually looks like woven hair, not just parallel lines painted on. The braids themselves fall from the crown in a thick ponytail over the left shoulder, deep navy blue with bright cobalt highlight rows running through every few braids so the whole mass has that two-tone sheen you get on fresh extensions. Took several passes to get that right in the digitising software.

Face is a three-quarter view, the subject looking slightly upward and to the right with that kind of eyes-up expression. Brows are dense black satin, bolder than realistic, giving the whole face a graphic illustration feel. Lashes are long directional satin extending past the lid in that makeup ad sweep. Lips are red satin fill, parted just slightly with a fine highlight line dividing upper and lower lip. A big circular gold hoop earring sits at the jawline, stitched with a curved satin fill and a thin inner void to read as an open hoop not a disc.

Six colour stops: skin base, braid navy, braid cobalt, brow-lash black, lip red, earring gold. Density runs 815 density which gives is dense but thats what the portrait detail needs. Biggest size maxes at 42k stitches so youre looking at about 90 minutes on a home machine. Five sizes from 3.5 wide up to 7.5, heights 3.23 to 6.92 inches. A customer who runs a small Black-owned accessories shop stitched the 6-inch on black canvas pouches last spring and sold out her first batch of twelve in a single weekend market, she messaged me a photo and Ive been showing it to people ever since.

Use a medium to heavy cutaway stabiliser, this design is dense enough that a tearaway wont hold the registration. Hoop firmly on stable woven cotton, canvas or denim. Dark backgrounds, black, deep burgundy or forest green, let the gold earring and cobalt braid highlights pop without fighting the skin tones. Avoid stretchy knits at full size, the density will pull the fabric and youll end up with a puckered result and no easy way to fix it. Run a thread test on the cobalt and navy first, theyre close enough that some machines colour-shift them under certain lighting. Send me a note with the order number and Ill check the colour stop order.