Scroll Wall Hanging

There's something so fun about going big and bold with embroidery. Like with the new Candlelight Tales collection – each full design is divided up into three pieces to let you maximize the power of your hoop. The question is, how do you show off that big and beautiful embroidery? Well, this wall scroll is a simple and chic way to showcase that big embroidery project you're so proud of!

Supplies & Materials:

Supplies

To make your scroll wall hanging, you'll need:

Your favorite Candlelight Tales split embroidery design
Printed templates of the designs for placement (here's how to print templates)
Two wood dowels and wood knobs
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
1/2 yard of canvas fabric

Medium weight cutaway stabilizer
Temporary spray adhesive
Twine
Handing hardware
Spray paint for wood
Black tea (optional)

I am using the largest size of the Romeo & Juliet embroidery design from the Candlelight Tales collection. These pieces measure around 8 x 8 inches each, so the finished full design could end up as tall as 24 inches. However, in most cases it will be smaller, as the three-piece sections slightly overlap each other to create the full design. If you are curious about how long each completed design will end up, make sure to check out the product description for each design. This will give an approximate finished length.

Given my design choice, I want the width of my finished scroll to be around 12 inches, so I cut a piece of canvas fabric 14 inches wide, and used the length that the fabric comes in on the bolt (44 inches). This gives me plenty of space to hem my fabric on all sides, and lots of extra inches to play with how much I want to roll or unroll the scroll when I hang it.

The designs used in this tutorial include:

Candlelight Tales - Romeo and Juliet (Split)

Gather Materials:

The first thing we can do is tea dye the fabric for a vintage look. I also used some old coffee, mixed with some hot water and black tea bags. Black tea tends to dye fabric more brown, while coffee fives a more yellowed dye effect.

Plastic container filled with dark brown liquid and submerged light brown wrinkled fabric on a white background.

Here is the fabric wet, after soaking for 30 minutes or so.

Long rectangular piece of wrinkled tan fabric with irregular darker brown stains, laid flat against a white background. No visible embroidery or text.

While the fabric is drying, hot glue the wooden balls onto the ends of the dowels.

Blue rotary tool with a sanding drum attachment held in one hand, inset shows a hand holding a wooden dowel topped with a felt polishing ball.

After the glue dries completely, spray paint your scroll rods any color you like! This step is optional, but it's nice because it covers up any messy hot glue edges that might have happened in the previous step, and makes them look more like metal tapestry rods. I sprayed mine copper-colored.

Two wooden dowels with knobs on both ends resting on a white surface with brown shading. Inset shows Krylon Rust Protector primer spray can next to dowels.

After your fabric dries, iron it flat. Then find the center of your fabric and mark a line for your 3 pieces of embroidery to line up on.

Using printed templates helps in this process. If you need a refresher on how to print these, click here.

Paper pattern taped onto brown fabric shows a rose, a crown, and a hand holding a pen with a ribbon reading “A NEVER CEASING BEAUTY TILL THIS NIGHT.”

I eyeballed this using my templates and marked the center point and the horizontal axis lines using masking tape and a pencil.

Paper pattern taped to brown fabric with three small pieces of tape. Pattern shows a reindeer head above a ribbon banner with partially visible text. Three black arrows point outward at edges of the paper.

In addition to marking the axis lines on your tape, it's helpful to punch through the middle of the printed crosshairs of the templates to mark the center of the design on your fabric.

Hand holding a pencil sketching on white paper taped at the edges to a tan leather or suede surface for tracing or drawing.

Start Embroidering:

This way, you have precise hoop markings for the designs as you stitch each one out. If you need any further tips on stitching multi-piece designs together like this, check out this tutorial.

Start your embroidery! Attach your medium weight cutaway stabilizer to the back of your fabric with temporary spray adhesive. Hoop both together tightly for each section.

Beige fabric with uneven color and small dark spots, taped in seven places with off-white tape strips, laid on a white textured surface.

When each piece is done stitching, you'll have a nice big beautiful design cascading down your fabric! The nice thing about these patterns is they're designed to have a little wiggle room with how they overlap. Even if you're off by a little, they will still look great.

Embroidery on beige fabric shows a red rose, a banner with “I NEVER SAW,” a heart pierced by a sword with a banner reading “TRUE BEAUTY,” and parts of additional scrolls and floral designs.

Now that the embroidery is done, we're going to hem the long edges of your fabric scroll. I folded 0.5 inches in once, and 0.5 inches in again for the hem.

Hand holding beige scroll wall hanging fabric on white surface with partial embroidery pattern and inset close-up of fingers folding fabric edge.

Sew a seam down both sides of your fabric.

Close-up of embroidery on tan fabric showing part of a saw graphic with red thread and a stitched border on the right side against a white background.

Play around with how long you want your scroll to be and how much fabric you would like to roll onto our dowel.

You can trim the fabric down and sew a loop for the dowels to slide through (remember to leave enough room for your knobs to slide through at this point!)