Heres the back to school gnome and hes one of my favourite school designs in the shop. Bulky mustard yellow hat flopping over to the right, long white beard sweeping past his belly, theres only a tiny pink nose peeking through. Hes sat on the floor in a royal blue smock, charcoal grey shoes resting in front, holding a yellow pencil in one hand and leaning against three coloured pencils on his left.
Stitching uses a soft sketch-fill style instead of solid satin. The hat has those directional pencil-stroke lines you get when a digitiser leans into the scribble fill aesthetic. Beard rendered the same way, light grey lines layering for depth. Pencils have flat satin colour bodies in red, blue and green with realistic charcoal black wraps and pale tan tips. Honestly the colour blocking is what makes it read like a real classroom doodle.
Drew this gnome with the back to school season in mind, but my customers have been buying it year-round for teacher gifts and homeschool tote bags. One nursery teacher last September stitched a whole batch onto chambray smocks for her staff and they sold out at the school fete in 2 hours flat. The mum-led PTA group reordered 47 the same week and theyve been ordering ever since.
Pop this on cream, white or oatmeal cotton for the cleanest pencil colour read. A soft sage or pale coral works aswell if you want something warmer. Skip charcoal or navy bases here, the dark hat outline gets lost. Avoid waffle and terry, the small pencil tips wont read clean on textured weaves.
Stitch count is 24k on the biggest 7.5 inch size, 8.3k on the smallest 3.5 inch. Use a medium cutaway stabiliser on knit smocks and tee fabric, tear-away on woven cotton totes. Hoop snug and ease the speed dial down through the pencil tip satins, they jump alot if your tension is off. Send a follow-up if any size renders grainy on knit.
What people are using this design for
A starting point. The design works for plenty more than just this list, this is what folks have stitched it onto most.
- Teacher tote bags for back to school seasonStitch on a cream canvas teacher tote and add a name above the gnome for a clean PTA gift idea
- Nursery and pre-school staff smocksPop it on a chambray nursery smock for staff and the gnome reads beautifully across the chest pocket
- Homeschool kid pencil cases and bagsSew onto a small cotton drawstring pencil case for homeschool kids and the colour pencils sell themselves
- End of year teacher gift cushionsRun on a soft cotton cushion cover in oatmeal and gift it on the last week of term to a favourite teacher
- Classroom welcome bannersStitch large at 7 inches onto canvas and hang it as a back-to-school welcome banner in a classroom corner
- Library reading corner cushion coversEmbroider on a sage cushion for a library reading nook, the colours land soft against muted fabric
- Personalised teacher mug bagsAdd the gnome to a small cotton mug bag and tuck a thank you note inside for end of year teacher pickups
Dimensions
9 sizes included. Stitch counts shown for the largest colorway.
| Size (in) | Stitches |
|---|---|
| 3.50 × 3.29 in | 8,373 |
| 4.00 × 3.76 in | 9,866 |
| 4.50 × 4.23 in | 11,411 |
| 5.00 × 4.71 in | 13,304 |
| 5.50 × 5.18 in | 15,168 |
| 6.00 × 5.65 in | 17,261 |
| 6.50 × 6.12 in | 19,479 |
| 7.00 × 6.59 in | 21,870 |
| 7.50 × 7.06 in | 24,384 |
Files & Formats
Eight machine formats included in one zip. Whichever your machine reads, its in the pack.
Plus a color chart for thread matching. See full format guide.
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About the artist
Reyazul Masud Riham, hand-drawing every design on this site
Every design on Re Embroidery is hand-digitized by one person. Each file gets sketched, color-matched, and stitch-tested on real fabric before it earns a place in the shop. No team. No auto-conversion from images. Just slow, deliberate work, sometimes three or four days per design.
That's the joy I work for.
The hard part is finding my designs re-uploaded and resold elsewhere. So when you buy from Re Embroidery, you're paying one real person for the file you're about to download. That matters.
