Maneki-Neko for 2017 3rd Quarter Challenge Part 2
I never dreamed this project would take me almost two weeks to complete. But it is finished.
If you missed part one, you can read about it here:
It would seem adding the details to finish would be easy. Not!
I needle felted blue roving around the eyes. The gems underneath are actually blue, but because they were put over black it wasn’t obvious what color they were.
Then I spent time looking for a gold bell, but decided on using a wool ball instead. When I added the ribbon I made a slit on both sides of the arm to pull it thru.
The nose and mouth are also needle felted. But at one point, the nose fell off and had to be reattached.
I curled over the raised paw and secured it in order to show the paw and nails.
The nails proved to be a real challenge and after ripping them out at least a half dozen times, trying needle felting, then using floss and finally rayon thread.
I tried needle felting the arm in front and the tail in back to show the dimension, but it was negligible partly because of it being black. So, I stitched around them which helped.
Another challenge was the writing on the coin. I made a gold prefelt and copied the characters I had translated from an app for Good Health and confirmed with my daughter in law, Mari. I transferred the characters to a stabilizer.
I thought using the satin stitch on my Pfaff machine would work, but its not a straight satin stitch, but the stitches varied. So I decided to use a triple stitch which was fine until I reached curves. I ended up finishing by hand. I’m hoping I haven’t butchered the characters too much. After finishing the coin, I slip stitched it to the kitty.
The final addition were the whiskers. They are a little funky and I had to use a little GAC to give them a little stiffness.
Now its time to find her place facing East in hopes of bringing Good Heath to my household.
What challenges have you had lately?