Pinecone

After a walk in the woods, you always come home with pockets full of pinecones, so I wanted a bead version that you can never actually lose. The overlapping bands of light and dark brown mimic the real cone’s scales: lay them down row by row, switching shade exactly where the grid tells you to, and the layered texture appears almost by itself. The single green bead at the very top stands in for the little stem still attached to the branch, and it’s the detail that really brings the pattern to life. Since the silhouette is noticeably wider in the middle and at the bottom than up top, double-check which way up your pegboard is before you start, it saves a few surprises at ironing time. Once finished, it looks lovely tucked at the foot of a mini Christmas tree or slipped into a cosy autumn display on a windowsill.