mr. widdle and the sea breeze

After I finished the small great wave (which I ended up giving to my dad as a belated birthday gift), I was looking for another well-loved image to embroider and I came across Mr. Widdle and the Sea Breeze, which I have written about before.  In a burst of inspiration, I decided to make rice bag paperweights of the characters for my sister’s birthday.  Unbeknownst to my sister, I posted these images last week on Flickr and they were picked up by Sew Mama Sew, so dozens of people knew about her gifts before she did!  Several people asked about how I made these and the stitches I used, so here are the answers.

I xeroxed the cover and increased the image size by about 150% (I think).  I traced over the lines that I was going to embroidery with a heavier pen so they’d be easier to see, then taped the xerox to a window and used it as a light box.  I used a washable pen on the linen.  You can find explanations of how to do all of the stitches in Sharon B’s incredible Stitch Dictionary.  I used four strands of floss in my needle except where noted.

I did the image of the girl, Pretty Bit, and her cat, Rhubarb, first.  The flowers are a combination of lazy daisy (aka detached chain) and a sort of five-pointed Algerian eye.  The hillside is defined by French knots.  Both the flowers and the hillside use blue-green variegated floss. 

Pretty Bit’s face, arms, and feet are done with a single strand of brown-black floss using a backstitch.  Her face was so hard to do and I probably ripped it out four or five times until I got it to look satisfactory.  The key was to reduce the number of stitches to a minimum.  Her shirt and pants are both done using a split stitch — the pants are simply outlined, while the shirt is filled in with rows of split stitch (I started on one side and worked row after row across the shirt). 

Her hair is done with what I guess you would call a fill stitch or single stitch.  I achieved the shading by using three different colors in various ratios in my needle.  The lightest section of the hair is four strands of a honey brown, the medium section is two strands of honey brown and two strands of medium brown, and the darkest section is two strands of medium brown and two strands of dark brown.

Rhubarb is done with a turkey knot stitch (the best illustration of how to work this stitch can be found here), in which you create loops of floss, then trim them close to the surface to create a velvety, rug-like texture.  Fun and furry, but it made his face difficult to do!  If you look carefully, you’ll see I went for a more generic cat face than the illustration has, but this was the best I could do with that surface.  I also used different ratios of a deep ochre and the honey brown floss in my needle to give him a bit of shading along his legs and belly.  (After I took this picture, I went back and added a couple of darker stitches under his chin and belly, which you can see in the larger picture above.)

After Pretty Bit and Rhubarb, Mr. Widdle and his pet seagull, Gillie, were much easier to do.  Gillie is done with rows of split stitch following the contours of his wings and body and using different combinations of cream and grey in my needle to give him shading and depth.  His legs were done with a combination of orange and cream and his beak with orange.

To unify the Mr. Widdle image and the Pretty Bit image, I used the same French knot for the hillside and outlined Mr. Widdle’s coat using the same blue split stitch that I used for Pretty Bit’s pants.  Whereas Pretty Bit stands amid flowers to show her love of growing things, Mr. Widdle is smelling the sea breeze, done using a back stitch with a variegated floss.  His pants are done with a split stitch and his shoes and socks are a simple fill stitch.

I had an easier time with Mr. Widdle’s face since I had learned from Pretty Bit that I needed to simplify it to capture it in stitches.  I again combined floss to shade his hair, this time using different ratios of grey and cream.

I finished this by sewing wool felt to the backs to make little bags and filling them with rice.  What I like about turning them into little rice bags is that it encourages you to pick them up and turns them into tactile objects instead of something that just sits on a wall.

Whew – that’s a  long post!  Hope it answers all your questions but let me know if anything is unclear.

…And yes, she loved them!