Gingerbread Family Christmas Embroidery Design, Instant Download

Three gingerbread figures squeezed together in a little family huddle. The tallest one at the back wears a proper black top hat with a green band, looking quite pleased with himself. In front of him stands another figure with a red bow tie, a green bowtie just below, and a row of round coloured buttons down the chest. And tucked in front of both of them is the smallest one, wearing a blue pompom hat, holding a candy cane striped red and white. All three have those round rosy cheeks and little black bead eyes, plus the classic white icing swirl outline that makes em look like they just came out of the oven.

The cookie bodies are a warm tan brown, stitched in a dense directional satin so the surface has that slightly rounded dough look. Thin white icing traces the arms, legs and neck joints in a clean running line. Each figures face has separate colour patches for the cheeks, and the eyes are tight satin ovals. The buttons on the middle figure are individual satin circles in red and green, stacked down the torso. Nine colours in total, which explains the 36k stitch count on the largest size, but the layering is clean and each colour area is fully backed so nothing floats.

Smallest size is 2.6 by 3.51 inches, biggest is 5.56 by 7.51. So it works from a small stocking patch all the way up to a full centrepiece pillow. A customer who runs a small baking studio had these stitched onto their red canvas aprons one December and said every kid who came in wanted to know if the cookie people were real.

Best results on medium to heavy cotton, canvas, felt or fleece. Use a medium cutaway stabiliser and float a layer of water-soluble topping on any textured fabric. The icing detail lines are thin so keep your needle fresh and your tension even, or the outline can skip. Run the colour sequence in order, dont rearrange it, the tan body fill goes first and those fine white lines come last for a reason. Honestly its worth doing a test square first if youre new to multi-colour work with this many colour stops. Hit me up if the icing outline skips at the joint sections and Ill rebuild the registration.