How-to guide

How long does embroidery take? Real numbers for a dog portrait

A line-art dog portrait in a 6-inch hoop takes a beginner roughly 2 to 5 and a half hours of stitching, by our estimate, spread over a few evenings. That's for patterns of 525 to 799 stitches. Add an evening for printing and a practice piece, and about a day for the linen to dry after the rinse.

By Stitch Your Dog · Updated November 1, 2026

Real stitch counts, real estimates

Time is easier to estimate than you'd think, because a dot pattern tells you exactly how many stitches it has. We count them, then divide by a beginner's pace. Our estimate uses 2.5 to 4 stitches a minute, the same pace behind every time estimate on this site.

Stitching time for our three sample patterns, at 2.5 to 4 stitches a minute

Pattern	Detailed: stitches	Detailed: time	Simple: stitches	Simple: time
Maple, golden retriever	799 (681 back + 118 satin)	About 3½ to 5½ hours	487	About 2 to 3 hours
Bruno, French bulldog	525 (403 back + 122 satin)	About 2 to 3½ hours	403	About 1½ to 2½ hours
Pretzel, dachshund	590 (489 back + 101 satin)	About 2½ to 4 hours	428	About 2 to 3 hours

Detailed has every fur line on the pattern. Simple keeps the outline, the face and roughly a third of the fur strokes, the longest ones, so it's quicker and still looks like the dog. The eyes and nose are the same in both.

Why does Maple take longest? Fur. A golden retriever's feathered coat means many more fur lines than a French bulldog's smooth one. The satin fills barely change from dog to dog, because every dog has two eyes and a nose.

Our breed pages show both ends of the range, at the same pace. The corgi is the quickest: 362 stitches (286 back + 76 satin), about 1½ to 2½ hours. The Cavalier King Charles spaniel is the busiest: 1,085 stitches (1,000 back + 85 satin), about 4½ to 7 hours, most of them in its long, feathered ears.

What makes it faster or slower

The coat. Smooth coats need few fur lines. Feathered, fluffy and curly coats need many more.
Simple or Detailed. On a deadline, Simple is the safe pick. You can add fur later if the hoop needs it.
The satin fills. The eyes and nose are small, but each satin stitch has to sit right beside the last, so they go slowly.
Starting and ending threads. Each new length means cutting, separating, threading and starting again. Short lengths still beat tangles.
Unpicking. Taking out a few stitches and redoing them is normal, and it's part of the time.
Your sittings. Several short sittings keep stitches even. When your hands get tired, stitches get tight and puckers creep in.

The time around the stitching

Everything else a first portrait takes, start to finish

Step	Time	Good to know
Getting the pattern	Minutes with a pattern maker; an evening if you trace it	Photo to pattern
Printing	A few minutes, then about 5 minutes for the ink to dry	Test on plain paper first
The practice piece	One short sitting	A line, a wave, a circle and a filled dot
Hooping	A few minutes	Drum-tight, design centered
The stitching	About 1½ to 5½ hours, from the table above	Best over a few evenings
The rinse	5 to 10 minutes of soaking, then the tap	Removing stick and stitch
Drying and pressing	About a day	Press while it's still slightly damp
Finishing the back	One short sitting	Finishing the hoop

Spread over a few evenings a week, that's a couple of weeks from photo to wall. It's why our Christmas gift plan gives a portrait about three weeks of short evenings, with a spare day at the end.

How to estimate your own project

Any pattern, not only ours, can be timed the same way. It takes ten minutes to find your own pace.

Count the stitches. A dot pattern tells you the count. For a line pattern, measure the lines with a ruler: at 1/8-inch stitches, every inch of line is 8 stitches, so a 10-inch outline is about 80.
Find your pace. Set a timer for ten minutes and stitch your practice piece at a comfortable speed. Count the stitches you made and divide by ten.
Divide. Divide the pattern's stitch count by your stitches a minute, then by 60, to get hours.
Add the extras. Add printing, the practice piece, the rinse, a day of drying and finishing the back.
Add a spare day. If the hoop is a gift, plan to finish a day or two early. A slow evening or a line you want to redo won't matter then.

How long it takes to learn

Not long. Most beginners make a neat line of back stitch in their first sitting. Feeling at ease, where stitches come out even without thinking, comes with a practice piece and a first real project. Is embroidery hard? has the honest version.

You can also practice before you touch fabric. The free 3D Stitch Simulator walks you through back stitch and satin stitch on a hoop you can turn and flip, so the first real stitches go faster.

Questions people ask

How long does it take to embroider a pet portrait?

For a line-art dog portrait of about 525 to 799 stitches, our estimate is roughly 2 to 5 and a half hours of stitching for a beginner. Spread it over a few evenings, and add about a day for the rinse and drying.

How many hours is a 6-inch hoop?

It depends on the design. Our 6-inch dog portraits come out at roughly 1 and a half to 3 hours for a Simple pattern and 2 to 5 and a half hours for a Detailed one, at a beginner's 2.5 to 4 stitches a minute.