Raffle prize for Cynnamyl (bsky)~! She wanted one in memory of her ol’ good boy. I was more than happy to work on this for a friend. <3
Materials used:
- Felt
- Scissors
- Tracing paper
- Washable Markers
- Tacky Glue
- Lotsa sewing thread & embroidery floss
- The hope that this would turn out okay
- Optional: Lint Roller (if you have dogs)
I wanted to do her boy justice & since I’m still practicing– It was my first time felting someone’s dog. I sent some mock ups to Cyn & lets just say that she’s getting a pet rock now, too. <3
Funnily enough, I have bought so much new product for this piece! I had planned to just use up the felt that I own, which I own an AWFUL lot of, but I wasn’t sure I was happy with the felt colors I chose.
I got this heathered tan felt color that I bought from Joann’s before her terrible accident and OMG do I wish I bought MORE~!
The one I bought was very thick & it would have been awesome to make more layers with if it was thinner. I had to figure out how to cut out the shapes of the body without making the whole piece “too bulky”. I settled down to 3 from my intial 5.
The color though! Chef’s kiss. I loved how it made her dog feel more aged, so I thought maybe this heathered grey would also work! I don’t like using black however, so I did go out of my way to buy MORE heathered felt. And wouldn’t you know it, none of these colors “fit together”, so now I have these lovely autumn colors that I didn’t end up using. Ha!
At this point, I thought it was looking GREAT! Though the teeth do make me laugh. I used a fancy french knot for the teeth and I cannot explain why I was doing great so early on, but then it got progressively harder to do.
After this I started finding myself hesitating. What if the embroidery looks HORRIBLE & I should have just left it at this stage without shooting for the moon. But we say “fuck it” & gamble.
I played a game of “trust the process”, which I had a huge battle with. I wasn’t too sure how I felt, even considered just redoing the whole thing and keeping it to the stage before this, until I finished all the pieces. I ended up redoing the faces brown lines since they weren’t as noticeable.
I sewed it all to a white felt back and popped it into a frame. I think it came out lovelier than I thought it would. I was very worried I wouldn’t do justice to this piece, but we’re always our harshest critics. (It did help showing friends & receiving kind words after staring at this for too long.)
Despite this piece taking me quite some time, I think I learned A LOT from doing this one. I might be a little less nervous now to figure out embroidering. Confidence!
