“No animal, according to the rules of animal-etiquette, is ever expected to do anything strenuous, or heroic, or even moderately active during the off-season of winter.” — Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Our four furry friends are surely following the animal-etiquette rules as they happily relax among the swirling leaves of the forest. A Bear, Deer, Bunny, and Fox are beautifully digitized as adorable machine embroidery designs, ready to stitch out in the eight major embroidery file formats: ART, EXP, JEF, JEF+, JPX, PES, VIP, and VP3.

As a dedicated Janome Exclusive Studio, for our samples, we used the Janome Horizon Quilt Maker Memory Craft 15000 and the SQ23 9.1” x 9.1” embroidery hoop, one of the four hoops that come standard on this fabulous sewing and embroidery powerhouse.

It is thanks to Janome America that these designs can be offered to you for FREE — just in time for holiday gift giving.

These designs range in size as follows: 5½” x 4” for the dapper bear, 5⅜” x 3½” for the cutie pie bunny, 4⅜” x 4⅝” for the dear little deer, and 4½” x 4 ⅜” for the noble fox. These sizes include the forest tidbits surrounding each animal.

We chose to embroider our sample designs on a set of sweet baby bibs, using an existing free S4H pattern. The only alteration made was to leave off the bib’s grommet, which was originally designed to hold a pacifier leash. This allows a larger, uninterrupted area for the embroidery design.

Our S4H Bandana Style Drool Bibs are offered in three sizes. Use the largest size if you’d like to re-create our darling embroidered bibs. To accommodate the Janome SQ23 hoop, we cut 13” x 22” panels of the solid quilting cotton front fabric as well as the plaid flannel backing fabric. These bibs use just two layers; no batting is required, which makes them quick and easy to launder.

PDF templates are provided below to perfectly position each design. Print the template(s) of your choice and cut out the image, trimming close to the design.

1. Center the template on the front panel. The center of the crosshair should be 5″ up from the lower raw edge of the panel. Mark the center with a pin through the fabric panel and remove the template.
2. Set up the machine for professional style embroidery, with bobbin thread in the bobbin and 40wt embroidery thread in the top. Remember to download and print out the Thread Chart below to follow along with all the thread changes.
3. Hoop two layers of a water soluble or tear away stabilizer (we used Floriani Clean and Tear).
4. Place the front fabric panel over the top of the hoop, using your marked pin point to center the fabric top to bottom and side to side within the hoop. Lightly pin in place.
   NOTE: This “over the top of the hoop” method is a favorite of ours for odd shaped pieces of fabric or lighter weight fabrics like linen that might end up with permanent marks from being clamped in a hoop.
5. Bring in your chosen design. Place the hoop on the embroidery machine. Use the super-handy Janome “Baste” function to securely hold the fabric in place, which means you can remove the pins that originally held the layers. And now… prepare to be mesmerized by the detailed embroidery.
   
6. When the embroidery design is complete, remove the hoop from the machine, the fabric panel from the hoop, and any excess stabilizer from the back of the design. Press the design from the wrong side.
7. Place the S4H bib pattern over the embroidery so the design is centered and there is a 1″ border along the angled sides. Cut out the bib’s front panel.
   
8. Repeat to cut out a matching back panel from the flannel, making sure the plaid is straight and even within the bib pattern.
   
9. Follow the original S4H tutorial to stitch front to back, turn, edgestitch, and insert the snaps.

Our thanks again to Janome America for sponsoring the designs and providing the machines to make the stitch outs look perfect every time.

Of course we realize not everyone has access to an embroidery machine, but we hope this delightful design collection will inspire you to find out more about how interesting and affordable it can be add machine embroidery to your sewing space. We recommend taking a look at the full selection of Janome machines at your local Janome dealer, from the top-of-the-line Janome Horizon Quilt Maker Memory Craft 15000 to one of our studio favorites: the Skyline S9 to the embroidery-only Memory Craft 550E.

Gorgeous machine embroidery is the perfect finishing touch for such a wide variety of projects – especially with the eye-popping stitch quality you get with a Janome Embroidery Machine. These designs would look fabulous on any number of surfaces from garments to pillows to totes and more.

Thread Chart

Click button below to download the full color PDF thread chart showing sizing, stitch count, and thread color changes for each of the four designs. The thread we used is shown as both Robison Anton color numbers and Floriani color numbers.

IMPORTANT: This download consists of THREE 8½” x 11″ sheets that have been bundled together to make the download easier. 

Stitching Images + Templates

Click button below to download the full color PDF showing the close-up stitching images as well as the placement templates for each design.

IMPORTANT: This download consists of EIGHT 8½” x 11″ sheets that have been bundled together to make the download easier.

Download instructions (for .zip files)

All elements are provided in your choice of EIGHT file formats: ART, EXP, JEF, JEF+, JPX, PES, VIP, and VP3.

Each file is provided as a .zip file to download.

First, click on the Blue Icon from the list below that is the appropriate file format for your embroidery machine. This is the .zip file you want to download.

A) For Windows users: Select “Save As” to save the .zip folder where you’d like it on your computer. Navigate to that folder. To unzip the file, you will have to right-click on the folder and select “extract.”

B) For Mac users: The .zip file should automatically download to your “downloads” folder or a location you have previously defined. If not, then right-click (or control-click) on the link and select “Download Linked File”. Save the .zip file to your computer. To unzip the file, double-click the file. Your files will be unzipped into the same folder as the original .zip file.

NOTE: Our thanks to Sew4Home seamstress team member, Michele Mishler for her digitizing expertise to bring these designs to life! 

COPYRIGHT
All material (projects, artwork, text, patterns, photos, embroidery designs, etc.) on Sew4Home is protected under the copyright laws. The design and graphic files themselves, or any part thereof, cannot be sold, duplicated, resold, traded or shared in any way, in any digital format, and are for use by the original purchaser only. You may use them for personal use on physical products, but manufacturing of products made from our original design for mass production or commercial use is strictly prohibited. Please contact sew4home.com for additional details.