Oriental / AsianThe fenghuang, the phoenix of Chinese mythology, curled inside a medallion: its body in red and its tail feathers unfurling in a spiral to the rim of the circle, over a pale yellow ground. It is 206 x 206 stitches and only two threads, about 37 by 37 centimetres on 14-count. Be careful with that "two colours": the background is stitched here too, and the yellow alone is more than eighteen thousand stitches, well over half the work.
If you stitch it on yellow or cream fabric you can skip that background entirely and work only the red; in exchange you lose the clean edge of the circle and the phoenix floats. Both versions hold up, and that is what a free pattern is for. It also pairs with the Classic Chinese dragon in this same family: they are exactly the same size, 206 x 206, and dragon and phoenix have always been a pair in China, so hung together they explain themselves.
Fenghuang, the Chinese phoenix
This pattern is free: open it, change it however you like and publish your version in the gallery, under your name.
Files open with the Puntotek app.
The numbers
Size by fabric count
| Count | Stitches/cm | The design | In inches | Fabric to buy * |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 ct | 4.3 | 47.6 x 47.6 cm | 18.7 x 18.7 in | 64 x 64 cm |
| 14 ct | 5.5 | 37.4 x 37.4 cm | 14.7 x 14.7 in | 53 x 53 cm |
| 16 ct | 6.3 | 32.7 x 32.7 cm | 12.9 x 12.9 in | 49 x 49 cm |
| 18 ct | 7.1 | 29.1 x 29.1 cm | 11.4 x 11.4 in | 45 x 45 cm |
| 20 ct | 7.9 | 26.2 x 26.2 cm | 10.3 x 10.3 in | 42 x 42 cm |
| 22 ct | 8.7 | 23.8 x 23.8 cm | 9.4 x 9.4 in | 40 x 40 cm |
* The fabric to buy allows 8 cm on each side for the hoop and the frame. The highlighted row is 14-count, the most common: the pattern has the same number of stitches on every fabric, what changes is how big each one is.
Suggested fabric: white.
The threads
| Thread | Stitches | Of the total | Skeins * |
|---|---|---|---|
| DMC 16 | 18,372 | 55.1 % | 11 |
| DMC 666 | 14,990 | 44.9 % | 9 |
| 2 threads | 33,362 | 100 % | 20 skeins |
* The skeins are a guide: they assume about 1,700 stitches per skein with two strands on 14-count, rounded up. Finer thread goes further, doubled thread goes less far.
What this one asks of you
All 33,362 stitches are full cross stitch: no half stitches and no backstitch to follow.
It has 497 lone stitches, 1.5 % of the total, and 0 of those have no neighbour of their color at all. The more there are, the more the needle jumps.
