Texas Embroidery (Aurifil Artisan Challenge + Free Pattern)

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As a 2020 Aurifil Artisan, I’ll be participating in several fun challenges throughout the next year. This month, we were asked to create a cross stitch or hand embroidery project featuring Aurifloss or 12 wt thread. I had never used Aurifloss before, and jumped on the chance to try it out!

I had a couple different ideas, but settled on a companion piece to this North Carolina embroidery I made for my sister more than 6 years ago. We were born and raised in NC, but she’s been in the Seattle area for more than a decade while I’ve been in Houston for nearly 20 years. Since my husband and kids are all native Texans, creating a similar piece for Texas seemed like a no brainer.

Aurifloss is a 6-strand 100% cotton floss that comes in all 270 of the lovely colors I was already familiar with from their other sewing and quilting threads. It also comes on cute wooden spools, which I love — so much easier to manage and store than other floss I’ve used in the past (which inevitably ends up in a tangled mess).

I chose several warm shades that I thought would work well together for my piece. Pictured above from left to right are:

• #2350 Copper
• #2210 Caramel
• #1103 Burgundy
• #2145 Yellow Orange
• #2225 Salmon
• #2270 Paprika
• #2135 Yellow
• #2024 White

I had to order these before my Aurifil color card arrived, so I took my best guesses using the online color card. For the record, I definitely recommend owning a physical color card since online colors never quite match real life! Fortunately I got close enough. I used all of the colors above except #2210, which was a little too muted for the color contrast I wanted. (But never fear — I put ol’ #2210 to good use already in a postcard!)

For the design, I found a simple clip art graphic of Texas, and filled it with a geometric design in Illustrator. (It is not a county map — Texas has 254 counties which would be a LOT to fit on a small piece!) I added text at the bottom as well. The fabric is a navy solid from my stash, backed with lightweight fusible interfacing for stability. Using a lightbox, I traced the design onto my fabric with a chalk pencil, and was ready to start stitching!

I separated each piece of Aurifloss in half, stitching with 3 strands at a time. I am not an embroidery expert by any stretch of the imagination, and have read tutorials that recommend 1 strand, 2 strands, 3 strands…even all 6 strands! I did try using all 6 together, but wasn’t happy with how it looked. Three strands seemed like the right compromise for me to get a smooth finish while also making quick work of each section. (For the text, I used 2 strands.)

Aurifil recommends using the floss in shorter lengths of 12-18″ to reduce tangling. I admittedly stretched this recommendation a bit, cutting pieces more like 18-24″. As a result, I did have a couple knots — but I have ALWAYS had to deal with knots when I embroider or cross stitch. (FYI, a quick fix is to let the thread dangle and untwist every few stitches…but sometimes I forget!)

Against the dark background, the reds and yellows make Texas really glow! This was such a fun project, and I was so happy with the colors and quality of the Aurifloss. It may have been my first time using it, but definitely won’t be the last.

Download the Texas embroidery pattern

If you’d like to make your own Texas embroidery, I’ve made the PDF available at the link above as a freebie. It is sized to fit an 8×10 frame. (Or, if you omit the quote, the Texas portion fits nicely in an 8″ hoop!)