Embroidered French Knot Flower Bouquet

I know summer just ended, but I just couldn’t resist stitching another floral pattern. If you enjoyed the embroidered french knot tree project, then you’ll definitely want to try out this new lovely bouquet. Here we go again, using the french knot stitch for almost the entire piece – one of the easiest ways to embroider flowers and create gorgeous textures.

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Project Overview

PROJECT SIZE: approx. 9.5x9cm (3.7×3.5in)

STITCHES USED: Fishbone Stitch, Split Stitch, French Knot, Outline Stitch

This design is using some of the basic stitches and a lot of french knots! The fishbone stitch is one of the best choices when embroidering leaves, the split stitch and outline stitch are both great choices for both outlining or filling areas, and the french knot creates gorgeous textures.

Today, we’ll be using the split stitch when filling the stems, and the outline stitch for the small veins on each leaf. If you’re not familiar with these stitches you can check the stitches videos section of the blog.

To learn how to stitch the perfect french knot check out my detailed french knot video tutorial.

In case it feels more comfortable to you, you can substitute the french knot stitch with the colonial knot.

Tools and Materials

You won’t need an awful lot of materials for this project. Just the usual – fabric, needles, and embroidery floss. If you’re missing some of the threads I used, you can create your own color palette with the shades you have access to.

Download the Floral Bouquet Pattern

Download the floral bouquet pattern from my Free Pattern Library.

To get access to the Free Pattern Library fill out the form below and I will send you an email with your password. You can read more about my Free Pattern Library here.

The pattern you have downloaded is full size, so when printed on A4 paper will have the exact size to fit into a 7-inch embroidery hoop. You just need to have the Fill Entire Paper option selected.

Flower Bouquet Embroidery Color Palette

The french knot bouquet project uses a simple combination of three color families, Lavender, Wedgewood, and Avocado Green. For each color, we’ll use a few shades from its color family, just to create a bit more contrast and break the monotony.

Or, you can check these similar color schemes, they’d work great for this bouquet pattern:

• Romantic Landscape Stitch Color Palette
• Sakura Tree Stitch Color Palette
• Mystical Rose Stitch Color Palette

If you decide to create your own color palette, and if you have access to variegated embroidery floss, this is the perfect pattern to give them a try.

How to Stitch the Perfect French Knot?

When it comes to stitching flowers, the french knot is one of the simplest methods, particularly for patterns that are more forgiving, like this floral bouquet.

Since we’ll be stitching a lot of french knots, I’d like to highlight a few important reminders before we start.

Use the right needle

The most important aspect of french knot embroidery is to use the right needle. Whether you’re stitching a lot of french knots or any other type of knotty stitch (bullion knots), you need to use a Milliners needle.

This pattern calls for six strands of thread for the french knots, thus a Milliners needle size 3 is the perfect choice.

Don’t wrap the thread around the needle more than three times

Wrapping the thread around more than three times will only make your French Knots looser. This pattern calls for all six strands of thread so the knots will be big enough.

Stitching the Stems and Leaves

The order of work for this pattern will be stitching the leaves and the stems first, then filling the simple embroidery flower with lots of french knots.

We’ll be stitching the leaves with fishbone stitch and the stems with split stitch.

The fishbone stitch is a great filling stitch for leaves, while the split stitch is usually used for stems in botanical embroideries.

Use four strands of DMC 936 and a needle size 5 or 7.

Start at the tip of the leaf and make a straight stitch working inwards.

Bring the needle up slightly to the left at the top of this straight stitch and insert the needle down at the bottom slightly under the end of the straight stitch.

Emerge at the top slightly to the right of the first straight stitch, and insert the needle down at the bottom, slightly under the previous stitches.

Continue in the same manner, filling each leaf with fishbone stitch until all are completed.

Next, I stitched the stems, filling them with adjacent rows of split stitches using four strands of the same shade of green as the leaves, DMC 936.

Stitching the Flowers

Before you start stitching the french knot flowers, switch to a Milliners needle size 3. These needles also referred to as Straw needles, are long with round eyes and are ideal for french knots and other knotty stitches.

In general, when you need to stitch a larger knot you’ll have to use more strands of thread (3-6). The same goes when you need to stitch small delicate knots, you’ll have to decrease the number of strands you’re using (1-3).

Today, we’ll be using all six strands of thread for the flowers, therefore a Milliner size 3 will work like a charm and will be easy to thread.

For the purple french knots, I used the following shades from the Lavender family: DMC 211 (Lavender Light), DMC 209 (Lavender Dark), DMC 208 (Lavender Very Dark), and for the darkest shade DMC 550 (Violet Very Dark).

I always like to start with the darkest shade, then gradually build up the stitching using the next shades. Place your first french knot stitches using the darkest DMC 208 – in the areas where you’d like your shades to sit.

Then gradually switch to the lighter shades – DMC 209 and DMC 211, and repeat.

This pattern is clearly an abstract depiction of a flower, but this doesn’t mean we can’t make it look a bit more realistic. To do so, stitch small clusters of french knots using the same shade to create the illusion of light and shadow.

Repeat the same process for the blue flower using the following shades: DMC 519 (Sky Blue), DMC 518 (Wedgewood Light), DMC 517 (Wedgewood Dark), and DMC 336 (Navy Blue).

Once I completed the french knots, I felt like something is missing from the leaves. I decided to stitch a small vein in the outline stitch using two strands of DMC 935 (Avocado Green Dark).

The outline stitch is very similar to the stem stitch. The only difference between the two is for the outlines stitch your loop should be above the needle.

After many french knot stitches, this is how mine turned out. Lovely flowers and textures, created using just one hero stitch.

This is just one of the many creative ways you can use french knots in your embroidery projects.

I really hope you enjoyed stitching with me this French knot bouquet and can’t wait to see your gorgeous embroideries.

If you’re looking for more flower inspiration, check out this flower coloring pages article. Even though they’re not exactly embroidery patterns, you can totally tweak them for a cool hand embroidery project and use the same technique we covered in this tutorial.

Remember that you can download the floral bouquet pattern from the Free Pattern Library. To access it just fill out the form below and I will send you an email with your password.

More Embroidery Projects

• Cherry Blossom Tutorial Free Embroidery Pattern
• Floral Alphabet: Stitching the Flower
• Lavender Embroidery Free Pattern
• Cottagecore 101: Beginner’s Guide to an Enchanting Lifestyle

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