Mr Bear - He's done!

Gosh this guy has driven me crazy this week.  I've stared at him this way and that, I've picked him up, I've shifted him about.  I spent a day or two playing with my cheesecloth buttonhole wheels in what can only be explained as totally avoiding him.  

The felt pieces were way too thick, they looked ok in the photo, but in real life they were awful.  I thought for a few days about filling the eye sockets with stitches, but that would've put too much focus on those eyes.  Sigh... I think I hated Mr Bear a bit this week.  I even thought about tossing him in the drawer and starting something else.  But Miss P has her heart set on him.  So I rifled through my stash and found some plain black cotton, did a bit of a test.  Decided that a single strand of floss for the eye highlights was too thick, so I used regular sewing machine thread.

Even now looking at the photo I'm regretting that nose.  I tried to put a few stitches across the top of the nose and couldn't get them right, so I pulled them out.  Arghhhh.  Hmmm he needs something on the top of that nose.  I might well end up hating him again this week.

But we'll see.

Oh I found out who originally drew this guy, a Russian graphic artist called Olga Gamynina.  Thanks Olga, hopefully I did you proud.

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!

Mr Bear Progress

Haven't had too much time stitching over the last few days.  But I've made a bit of progress on the bear.

I think I see a whole lot more unpicking in my future.  While I was really pleased initially with the dark area under his muzzle.  Now that I'm actually filling in the stitches around his shoulder area I've discovered some problems.

1.  I've taken the stitches too low under his muzzle

2.  Those same stitches are too small and are not going to blend into the other stitches

3.  Also I'm not liking those triangular areas on his 'cheeks'.  They're definitely supposed to be a bit closer in that area... but I think its too dark.

4.  Not a big one but I think I need a few more stitches under that left eye, its just not blended enough out to the lighter stitches.

I am enjoying stitching him, and thats what counts at the end of the day and Miss P has already called dibs on him when he's done.  The big battle (for me) will be getting those eyes right.  I am dreading those.

Thats it for now.  Thanks for stopping by.

Mr Bear

Well I've made a start on the bear.  I've done a rough attempt to trace out the darker and lighter sections onto my fabric (calico again).  That in itself was a bit of a mission as even using a lightbox trying to figure out where the area changes are wasn't that easy.  But I was only after a rough idea and hopefully what I've marked out will be enough.

I had a quick play on a scrap of fabric and decided that the lighter stitches will be done with 1 thread and the darker 2 threads.  And I'll just change the size and closeness of the stitches to get the diff 'textures' of the pen strokes  That and try and follow the direction of the pen from the original image.  And if that doesn't work then I'll just make it up as I go 😀

I've already discovered that when you're sewing in just one colour its very hard to see the picture appearing.  And I guess with this type of image the close up view is not what you're actually aiming for.  You need to step back from it to really see the image.  Its funny how much better it looks in photo form than it does sitting on my lap.  I guess thats just down to that extra distance.

I'm still pondering the nose and eyes area.  I'm thinking of a black felt to get that really dark colour.  But then the debate will be whether I just stitch them down or I cover them with stitches.  Hmmm something to ponder over.

One thing I have found since I took this photo is that running stitch is too orderly for this image.  The strokes of the pen I believe are done in rows across an area not up and down.  I discovered this the hard way of course.  So I unpicked it and am now back doing straight stitches.  I'm not sure if that makes sense so I've tried to illustrate it below.  Not that my running stitch is any where NEAR that precise.  But it does illustrate the columns of running stitch versus the rows that I mean.  

Anyway I better go and get my day started. Until next time!