By Cross Stitch Library · October 19, 2026
A cheerful red fox in a green knit scarf holds up a maple leaf, a satchel slung at its side — a bright, standing woodland cross-stitch for fall decor.
Your pattern is at the end of this page, right after the stitching guide below.
Mid-stride on an autumn walk, a red fox holds up the maple leaf it just picked, mouth open like it’s about to tell you all about it — green scarf on, satchel over one shoulder.
This is a full standing figure, nose to back paws, so it reads from across a room rather than needing a close look. At 129 x 166 stitches it finishes 9.2“ x 11.9“ on 14-count Aida, which drops straight into a standard 11“ x 14“ frame with a little mat around it. The background is left unstitched, so the fox sits on bare fabric — pick the Aida color with that in mind; white keeps the orange bright, oatmeal makes the whole piece look warmer and older. It pairs with the Red Fox Peeking Around a Door, the other fox in a knit scarf, and with the Golden Puppy in a Cable-Knit Scarf for a bundled-up autumn set.
Everything is a full cross stitch, and 11,787 of them in total — a solid few weeks, not a weekend. The fur is the counting-heavy part: DMC 3853 Autumn Gold Dark (2,647 stitches) and 920 Copper (2,091) are laid next to each other in short broken runs to make the shading, so expect to switch between them often rather than fill big blocks.
Stitch the scarf first. Its two greens, 3362 Pine Green Dark and 988 Forest Green (1,239 stitches together), all sit in one band across the middle of the chart, and once they’re in they give you a fixed landmark to count the orange fur above and below from. The maple leaf is 728 Topaz (161 of its 189 stitches are in the leaf) shaded with the same 3853 as the fur, and the two oranges are close enough that it’s easy to grab the wrong one under lamp light — keep the bobbins on opposite sides of your organizer. Save the tiny colors for the end: 22 stitches of B5200 make the eye highlights, and the 8 stitches of DMC 01 Tin White are the buckle on the satchel. It’s our pick for a first fox in our fox pattern round-up, and it also appears in our fall animal round-up.
Choose your paper size and color or black & white, then download the Red Fox Holding a Maple Leaf PDF chart and thread list — free, no sign-up.
