By Cross Stitch Library · October 10, 2026
A badger hugging a glass mug of spiced cider with a cinnamon stick and star anise, on a wooden table — a cozy, richly detailed autumn cross-stitch pattern.
Your pattern is at the end of this page, right after the stitching guide below.
A badger wraps both arms around a glass mug of amber spiced cider — cinnamon stick angled out of the top, a star anise floating on the surface — and peers over the rim like it has no plans to share.
The glass mug is the clever part of the design: you see the cinnamon stick through its side, and white streaks of reflection run down the glass. It’s a fall-and-winter piece for anywhere hot drinks get made, from a kitchen wall to a coffee corner. The badger sits on a thick wooden tabletop that spans the full width of the bottom, which gives the piece a solid base and makes it easy to frame square. Another badger character stars in our Woodland Badger Wizard, a third carries a giant pink bloom in the Badger Carrying a Peony Blossom, and for a hot-drinks set, pair it with the Bear Cub with a Steaming Mug and the Grumpy Koala with Coffee.
Only 14 colors, but 15,818 stitches packed into a 130 x 154 grid — just 20% of the area is left unstitched, the densest coverage in this batch. DMC 310 Black (3,582 stitches) and 869 Hazelnut Brown (2,024) make up over a third of the piece. Dense charts are slower than their size suggests, and the fur along the badger’s back shifts between grays one stitch at a time.
Stitch the cider before the glass highlights. The 1,687 stitches of 780 Topaz that make up the drink sit behind white B5200 streaks, and if you lay the white in first you’ll be fitting amber around it one stitch at a time. The star anise is just 112 stitches of DMC 898 near the top of the mug — it’s the detail people lean in to find, so give it care. The pale strip of 842 along the table edge is seven rows tall and runs 95 stitches along the table; count it from the left end of the table rather than from the badger so it stays straight. More cozy fall designs are in our fall animal round-up, and other woodland characters are in our cozy woodland fantasy round-up. Our badger pattern round-up compares it with the other two badgers.
Choose your paper size and color or black & white, then download the Badger's Spiced Brew PDF chart and thread list — free, no sign-up.
