First Attempt.....

Well, it's time to start the grandchild's quilt. I haven't decided how large to make it yet. I need to figure that out pretty soon. This is my first attempt at converting a cartoon into an embroidered applique.

At first I was going to do the entire hippo as embroidery but that's a ton of stitches so I decided to applique the design and embroider the details. This is my first sample. You'll notice I used weird colors, that so it's easy for me to see the stitches and detail so I can decide what and how to change it.

First off, the scan came out weird. The design is on lighter purple and is a flat solid color. Actually, I like the washed out colors on this and now either need to add embroidery to highlight more areas or see if I can 'stone wash' the fabric so it's faded here and there like the scan.

Next all the black outline will be a shade darker than the purple of the fabric so it'll blend and contrast at the same time.

I know you can't tell but each hoof nail is a different stitch. I think I've decided on satin stitch that split for each nail and going different directions so it stands out. I'm not sure if I'll outline it though. If I do, it might look clunky instead of outlined. Thread does that, ya know.....

It was a bit of a pain basing the fabric then cutting around the hippo while it's still in the hoop and putting it back in the machine for the rest of the sewout. I'm thinking I might want to do an outline of the hippo, cut it out, do another outline of the hippo on the quilt block, then glue the hippo on and do the sew out that way. I'm thinking that might be faster and have cleaner edges.

All this work and it's just one out of, I think S had 12 different characters she wanted done. I believe the monkey and panda will be the most work and fun at the same time.

Well, back to working on the little hippo and watching old episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea on Hulu. There are distinct advantages of having two computers on one desk. LOL!