Animal Crossing: New Horizons: How to unlock patterns from Sable

In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you can unlock a new pattern option from one of the NPCs, Sable. Here’s how to do it.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons has a massive wealth of interesting characters. Incredibly educated owls, newsie skunks with fascinations in footwear, a “rabbit” that may just be someone in a costume and a plethora of unique villagers with varying personalities and quirky habits. There are alsoa few that look like they’re made of desserts and I’m not real comfy with that.

But there’s one villager that I’ve been a fan of for multiple games and in Animal Crossing: New Horizons she shines like no other character. Unfortunately, it’s also the only character most people miss because she’s the only one that doesn’t tackle you to the ground and force you to get to know them. That’s Sable. I’m going to rant and describe her here but if you want the “tl;dr” short version, I’ll drop that at the bottom.

When you get to a certain point in the game, you meet the blue porcupine, Mable. Eventually, when you buy enough clothing from her, she opens her Able Sisters shop on your island. In the back of that shop sits her older, quiet sister, the brown porcupine Sable.

When you meet her she doesn’t have much to say. Every time you talk to her she will give you anything from “…” to asking her sister to ask you to leave her alone. She’s not mean about it, she’s just shy.

Keep talking to her. Eventually she’s start getting really happy you ducked in. You build a friendship. She mentions how good it is to see you. Keep talking to her.

Eventually you’ll get to a point where she opens up — in a big way. She’ll tells you all about her difficult childhood. You’ll find out about their other sister Lable and you’ll even unlock a whole new thing in the game most don’t know is in there: Sable Patterns.

Once you learn all about her, every day you talk to her she hands you a new bag of patterns. These don’t go in your inventory, however. If you have something with upholstery like a chair or a bed, go to customize it. You’ll see a new character next to your custom patterns. Selecting this will open all the patterns she gives you. Each bag is a whole new page of patterns in a different category: space patterns, edgy skull work, fun stuff with food like sushi patterns, all sorts.

These are super useful and allow you to really change things up. They’re especially fantastic for people who aren’t necessarily too artistic, and I’ve seen islands that would make cat villagers go “woof.”

Not only that but Sable’s story is a real story. She doesn’t just say a short blurb, she opens up about her parents and her work, and brings in her sister. They have a touching moment and, man, if only more characters had her kind of story. (I’ve actually mentioned this before here.)

Anyways, enough ranting, here’s the short version. Thanks for sticking with me.

Getting Sable Patterns

1. Talk to Sable every day
2. Watch for her to eventually start opening up
3. Eventually she’ll start handing you new patterns every day
4. Enjoy the best NPC in the game

That’s all there is to it! Be sure to check out our full guide for Animal Crossing: New Horizons!