Nearly there...

I've finished the main stitching on Mr Bear.  I've cut the felt out for the eyes and nose this evening and they're currently just sitting on the fabric.  So far I'm fairly pleased with the result. 

I'm still not happy with the area under the chin, but I unpicked it and re-did it as I said I was going to last week.  And then I unpicked it and re-did it again.  As I'm only using cheap calico I think after three goes at it I was seriously starting to risk the fabric just coming to bits.  So after the third crack at it I made the call, thats it.  It is what it is.  Suck it up buttercup and move on!

I've just noticed posting the photo below that the blending of the eye on the left is a bit lumpy.  It needed a few more stitches but I seem to have created a lump now, so I'll have to have another go at that.  Sigh...

So... the felt.  I always feel eyes either make or break a piece, whether it be a painting, a quilt, a sketch whatever.  The original image has the eyes almost appearing as recessed.  There is no way I'm going to be able to achieve that especially as I'm using felt for the eyes.  But I don't want them appearing to pop out either.  So I somehow need to attach the felt without creating too much height.  And then of course I need to create the accents at the bottom of the eyes and the top of the nose.  Not sure what colour I'll use yet.  White is going to be TOO white. 😁  So I'll have to have a play around to get a light colour without getting a colour that is going to stand out.  That makes no sense does it?  I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think the highlights on the eyes and top of the nose on the original image are a focus of the original image.  So I don't want to make them a focus of my embroidery either.  For example the felt for the top of the nose currently looks too deep, but the sketch has quite a light area at the top of the nose, which I was going to fill in with stitches in light thread to blend it into the rest of his nose.  But even as I type this I'm thinking that maybe I should be trimming the felt along the top there and actually using stitches in black on the fabric to blend that area.  Hmmm...

Argghhh!  Why is it the last 5% of any project ends up causing 95% of the angst and effort? Haha.  But while I've not got much of an audience here (although I love you guys that do regularly stop by), if nothing else I'd definitely recommend blogging about your projects.  Taking a snapshot of your progress definitely gives you a bit of distance from it and that different perspective is really useful.  And explaining your thought process to someone else also gives you enough of a pause in the proceedings to allow room for alternative ideas to pop into your head.  I think I understand now why some quilters pin their projects on a wall where they'll walk past them when they get stuck for inspiration.  Its both that physical distance and that mental distance of just not being caught up in the process of getting it done.  

Anyway, I'm waffling (again).

Thanks for stopping by!