Elegant African Woman Embroidery Design, Instant Download

Its an elegant African woman portrait and its one of the more layered designs Ive made. She looks slightly to one side, not at you, which gives it a thoughtful quality. The face is smooth brown satin stitch, clean features, long lashes, gold hoop earrings on both sides. Then the afro hair opens up into a whole world. Inside the hair silhouette theres an orange sunset, a flat acacia tree in tight black satin columns, a family of giraffes silhouetted on the right, rolling savanna hills across the bottom. Its two things at once and it holds together completely.

my professional tool digitised the hair as a dense tatami underlay with directional surface stitching going outward from the centre, like actual natural hair growth. The sky gradient inside uses layered orange and burnt sienna fills with a warm peach tone near the horizon. Eight colours, eight colour changes, density sits at 1168 so youll need a real cutaway stabiliser to carry the weight. Stitch count is 19k on the small 3.5-inch and 59k on the biggest 7-in, and honestly the detail on the large size is really something.

I get orders from African fashion designers who use it on garments for cultural events, and from museum gift shops that do custom totes. One customer told me last year she had it stitched on a canvas bag for an exhibition about the African diaspora. Thats exactly the kind of use I had in mind when I digitised it. Text me if you want to talk through sizing for a specific garment, Im glad to help.

Cream, sand or ivory cotton or linen backgrounds give the warmest result. The terracotta and orange tones glow on pale fabric the way a real sunset does. Black backgrounds also work and make the gold earrings and face pop. Use a firm mesh cutaway stabiliser, dont go tearaway at any size, the hair section density needs full backing. Slow your machine speed a touch on the face satin area to keep the transitions sharp.