Snowflake Mandala: Winter inspired embroidery freebie

Snowflake Mandala: Winter inspired embroidery freebie

Hi! How are you feeling? Hope this season is going easy on you and you're able to find time and place to relax and enjoy some simple things. As one of the ways to treat yourself, I'm going to suggest some winter-inspired stitching!


This pattern was supposed to appear on the blog earlier, but my slow self was able to complete the design only yesterday! But better later than never, right?

Anyway, here's a cute lil snowflake mandala you can embroider to celebrate the winter! Personally, I used a small hoop as a frame for it and then took a string of twine to make a loop for hanging it. It became a real wall-candy, I'm not even lying, it does look pretty!

Snowflake Mandala: Winter inspired embroidery freebie

Now, I have to warn you that the pattern is simplistic enough and leaves you a lot of room for improvisation with stitches and techniques you want to try. What I mean is, I don't provide there directions for satin stitch or the grids – all of that was my own improvisation on the pattern as I was stitching it and I didn't add anything to the pattern after completing it.

The reason I didn't make any corrections and left it simple was that I thought you might want to try stitch it differently than me? And honestly, I do think that this design can be embroidered in many ways.

One of the options is to work the whole of the design with one of the line stitches: back stitch, stem stitch or split stitch. I think it would actually look really cool! You could also add some vibrancy by using colorful threads to stitch it.

As for me, I stopped at the monochrome option, haha. Actually, I was myself thinking of working it in a calm pastel palette, but it didn't turn out as I wanted so I decided to redo quickly.

Snowflake Mandala: Winter inspired embroidery freebie

Frankly speaking, if you have doubts about which colors to use when embroidering a design – just pull out the “whitework” card and you are safe! Whitework works on ALL occasions. Trust me. I am yet to see a design which wouldn't look nice in white.

Of course, it is not a classic example of whitework as it is stitched on a grey cotton fabric, but the main thing is that it looks pretty! For the ornament, I prefer the snowflake to pop up from the background. If I stitched it in white on a white background it would have a lacey effect which wasn't exactly what I was aiming for. However, if you want, why not explore this option?

Snowflake Mandala: Winter inspired embroidery freebie

In my version of the snowflake you can find such stitches as lazy daisy, stem stitch, split stitch as a filler for the leaves, satin stitch, and also grids as a filling of two petals of the flowers.

I'm really looking forward to all the beautiful versions of this design that you will stitch!

So, here's your link to download:



In this season when we are so busy running and preparing for the holidays, stitching a mandala like that can be a soothing and relaxing experience... I can even allow a cup of warm tea or hot chocolate while embroidering, just be careful to not put any stains on your work!

12 comments

  1. Hi Amina. This is a truly beautiful design. Thank you so much for sharing pattern. I have included it in our latest Top 10 in Craft inspiration for Winter crafts. https://craftylikegranny.com/winter-crafts/ Cheers Jodie :)

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  2. I love this design. Thank you for sharing it.

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  3. Hello Amina , This is beautiful and will be my next project ! :)

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  4. Wow this is so gorgeous and so generous of you to share a pattern! I'm a total novice who picked up embroidery during the pandemic and I'd love to make this for my mom for Christmas. Is it possible to find out which stitches you used in which locations of this pattern? I'm not quite comfortable enough to improvise yet and if I know the type of stitches I can at least google instructions on how to do them. Let me know if you'd be willing to share that information as well for those of us who don't yet know enough stitches to be at the improvisation phase! :)

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    1. Hi, there! That's great, welcome to the world of hand embroidery! Feel like home :)

      As for the stitches, let's try listing them. Hope it will be clear.

      Flowery spikes:

      -lines: stem stitch
      -leaves: split stitch filling
      -round shape: satin stitch over an outline
      -side petals: basic lattice work
      -the central petal: satin stitch over an outline

      The shorter spikes:

      -lines: stem stitch
      -branch-y leaves: lazy daisy stitch
      -bud: satin stitch over an outline

      All of the techniques mentioned have been covered on my blog. Check out Stitch Library https://stitchfloral.blogspot.com/p/stitch-directory.html

      P.S. satin stitch on small round and drop-like shapes is tricky and might be a little advanced for beginner. If it doesn't work out, don't get sad. You can use french knots for the round shapes (I have a crash course on my blog, you will find it in the Stitch Library), and fill the drop like shapes with split stitch.

      For any help, drop me a line on my e-mail through the contact form on this blog, or write a message on Instagram :)

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  5. Thank you for sharing your lovely pattern, Amina. I hope to try it before Christmas. I love white embroideries.

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  6. I'm new to embroidery and I have yet to try an all white project, so I may give this a go. Thank you for sharing.

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  7. Thank you so much for you generous tutorials, I'm new to embroidery and was wondering how many strands of thread to use for this particular work. Thank you.

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