Monday, June 23, 2014

Ornaments - so far

I finished Eme's giraffe with an edge that reminds me of a perforated postage stamp.
I love the eyelashes on this giraffe. I kept thinking it looked mean, but when I added eyelashes, her whole character changed.

Xander wanted a dinosaur robot. After Googling the idea of a dino-robot, I found that there were toys like transformers that were dinosaur robots. It was hard to choose one, but the RoboRaptor was the final choice. I started it on red fabric with white thread. That lasted all of 4 stitches. I kept losing the white thread between the threads of the red fabric. I still had some of the fabric I used for Eme's giraffe, so RoboRaptor was done in black on the white fabric with a red border.
It looks like the edge has faded, but that is just my poor photography and the wooden table beneath showing through. I don't know if he will like it, but I do. This was a real challenge.

Meri, who had no say in her ornament, is getting an old-fashioned Santa Claus. I used a gold sparkly fabric and a very old Pat Carson chart. I didn't use the shading that she used, and my 'fur cuff' and 'hat' are a faint grey instead of a faint blue. I also had to change the skin color and cheek color because the original colors didn't look right with the gold background.


The ornaments for Becca and Bryce are still works in progress. They wanted school symbols. Fortunately, the schools used things I could find ... seahawks and eagles. But neither school used the exact seahawk or eagle that the football tames used. So, I am busy at work 'designing' these ornaments.

The three above will go to the finisher this week.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Christmas is Coming ...

Well, not quite yet, but I have started working on the grand kid ornaments. Jon's kids have told me what they want, and Vicki made a suggestion for her son. So. In order of age, with oldest first - the requests are
Becca - an eagle like her school uses for the track and field department
Bryce - a South River Seahawk - like his new school will use for its emblem
Eme - a giraffe [no hemming and hawing here, she knows what she wants]
Xander - a dinosaur, no a robot, no a dinosaur robot
 Meri- didn't enter the discussion so she is getting a traditional Santa or snowman or angel or something along those lines.

1 out of 5 ... will be easy to do. The rest require finding images I like (or at least can live with), graphing them, and then stitching them.

I have almost finished one of them. Eme's giraffe. I found a giraffe that I almost liked, graphed it, stitched it. I started on black fabric. Decided I wasn't that crazy, and restarted on white. I thought I did like the way it popped out on the black, so I gave it a black background. OMG there are a lot of black stitches in there.
Now I am working on a pinkish coral 'frame' around it.
I have almost finished two rounds of the 'frame.' Frankly, I am tired of stitching it, but think it should be at least 4 rounds deep. Any thoughts?

Today is my 'baby's birthday ... he is 48. He doesn't like me to refer to him as my baby.