DIY Penguin Embroidery Hoop

Create a sweet penguin embroidery hoop for the holidays or winter season with simple appliqué and embroidery! Grab my free printable pattern to create your own cute penguin!

Hello Crafty Friends! It’s the twelfth and final day of my annual series “12 Days of Holiday Crafts“! Oh, how the time has flown by! :) Today I’m excited to share this sweet penguin embroidery hoop. This appliqué pattern is a great way to use up fabric scraps and it can be made for any time of year by just switching up the colors a bit.

I made two different hoops using my penguin embroidery pattern. The first hoop is a Christmas-themed hoop with my penguin wearing a classic Santa hat and a swirly green scarf. My second hoop features a wintery penguin wearing a scarf and hat made from purple and teal fabrics. This hoop could be displayed all winter long! 

This penguin hoop is a great introduction to appliqué and embroidery. I used only one simple running stitch for all of the embroidery. For my wintery penguin I chose to use a snowflake fabric. For my Christmas hoop, I chose to use a solid blue fabric with little bits of silver glitter. This is the same fabric I used for my Ombré Tree Pillow. Since this fabric didn’t already include snowflakes, I decided to add sequin snowflakes around the penguin. They really bring this hoop to life and make it look like a winter wonderland!

Below is the tutorial for the penguin embroidery hoop. You can grab the pattern for free by filling out the purple form at the end of this post. I will work on adding this pattern to my shop over the next couple weeks so if you prefer an ad-free tutorial you can grab it! 

DIY Penguin Embroidery Hoop

Supplies Needed:

• Penquin Appliqué Pattern – Grab the free file by filling out the purple form at the end of this post.
• 9″ Embroidery hoop
• Purple or Red Acrylic Paint
• Background Fabric
  • Blue cotton fabric – I used a 12″ x 12″ piece for my 9″ hoop.
  • White cotton fabric
• Appliqué Fabric
  • Fabric scraps in black, white, pink and orange for the penguin
  • 2-3 colors for the penguin’s scarf and hat
• Embroidery floss
  • Dark gray, white, pink and orange for the penguin
  • Colors to match the hat and scarf 
• My favorite iridescent Sequin Snowflakes
• Sewable Fusible Interfacing for Appliqué – I used Thermoweb HeatnBond Lite. 
• Embroidery Needles
• Embroidery Scissors and Fabric Scissors
• Iron – I used my Cricut Mini Press
• Wool ironing Mat

Painting the Embroidery Hoop

Step One: Start by painting the embroidery hoop using acrylic paint. You only need to paint the outer hoop but I recommend painting all sides of the outer hoop. 

Stretching the Background Fabric

Step Two: Stretch the sky and snow fabric in the hoop. The background of this hoop design is made from two fabrics, one for the sky and one for the snow. Start by laying the white fabric over the printed pattern and tracing the snow line. You should be able to see through the white fabric but if you have any trouble, you can cut the snow from the pattern and trace it onto your fabric that way.

Cut the white fabric along the curved line then position it over the sky fabric. You can use white embroidery floss and a simple running stitch to stitch the layers together along the curved line. Then place the hoop around the fabrics and stretch the fabric while tightening the hoop. You can stretch the fabrics in the hoop first and then stitch the snow layer down, it is completely up to you! I did it both ways on each of my hoops and both will work.

Cut away the excess fabric around the hoop but make sure to leave 2-3″ when possible. This will be gathered to the back of the hoop to finish it at the end.

Cutting Out the Appliqué Shapes

Step Three: Use the appliqué pattern to cut out the penguin shapes. Lay fusible interfacing over the pattern, paper side up, and trace the shapes. Bubble cut around each shape leaving a small 1/8″ border around each of them. 

Next, iron each piece to the wrong side of fabric and cut the shape out directly along the line. 

Ironing the Appliqué Shapes 

Step Four: Iron the shapes to the embroidery hoop to create the design. Start with the large black penguin shape. Peel the paper from the piece and iron it to the hoop from both sides. I really like using my Cricut Mini Heat press and wool ironing pad for appliqué work. I can sit right at my desk versus standing over an ironing board. The Mini Heat Press is also perfect for small pieces!

After the large penguin pieces is in place you can add everything else. For the penguin iron the individual pieces in this order: black penguin body, white penguin face/tummy, orange beak, black eyes, pink cheeks, orange feet. Next add the hat, starting with the largest hat piece, then layer the smaller pom pom and hat band pieces on afterwards. For the scarf, start with the largest scarf piece and add the two hanging pieces afterwards.

The eyes are so small, they did give me a little trouble on my Christmas penguin hoop when I was ironing them on. I had trouble stitching them on as well and ended up using just a dab of fabric glue to hold them in place.

Embroidering the Hoop

Step Five: Embroider the fabric pieces. The fun part! I love hand sewing and like to use a very simple running stitch for all of my embroidery.

Play around with whether you want to use coordinating floss or contrasting floss for the different pieces. For example, on my penguin hats I chose to use contrasting floss so the stitching would stand out. On other parts, like the cheeks, feet and beak, I used a coordinating floss. I tried a few different color flosses for the penguin and ended up liking a dark gray the best. That may be because my black fabric had dark gray stripes, but I liked that the dark gray makes the stitching stand out but not too much!

For the penguin’s cheeks I tried a few different things but one tiny single stitch ended up looking the best. I did this for my Christmas penguin. For my snowy penguin, I used a dab of fabric glue! I used a dab of fabric glue for both eyes since stitching them didn’t go well.

Adding Snowflakes

Step Six: Add snowflakes! My penguin embroidery hoop needed a bit of snow so I stitched on a few of my favorite snowflake sequins. I use these sequins all the time. Most recently on my Christmas Tree Pull Card but also on my Snowman Family Sign. I used regular sewing thread to stitch them in place.

Finishing the Hoop

Step Seven: The final step is to finish the back of the embroidery hoop. Using thread, stitch around the end of the fabric with a running stitch, pulling the fabric toward the center of the hoop as you go. Tie a knot securing the gathered fabric. If you’d like to finish the back of the hoop further, you can add a piece of cardstock or felt to the back of the hoop using fabric glue.

Display and Enjoy

The hoop is finished! You can hang the hoop with ribbon and display on a wall, or use an easel as I have done. I have a couple easels around my house and swap out different embroidery hoops depending on the season. 

I hope you enjoyed this cute penguin embroidery project. Thank you SO much for joining me for my series “12 Days of Holiday Crafts“. This was my ninth year doing this series and I just love sharing holiday craft ideas. I’m sure I’ll be back next to celebrate the tenth year! As we near the holidays, you can also visit my Christmas craft page for over 100 DIY holiday craft ideas! 

Get the Free Penguin Embroidery Pattern

Fill out the purple form below with your first name and email address! The free file will be sent straight to your inbox! If you have already filled out the form below, don’t worry – you won’t be added to my list twice! This freebie is for personal use only. I hope you enjoy crafting something special. Please let me know if you have any questions :)