Project: Little Horse Scene needlecase
Designer: Drawing taken from "The Crafter's Design Library: Animals" by Sharon Bennett
(photo of the book below)
Type of needlework: Embroidery and Painting
Photos: 4
Comments: I need to start by saying that this little project was so much fun to do.
My goal with this project was to make a little something for my very good friend Terry, something that would have meaning for her. She absolutely loves horses and had many during her lifetime, so I decided to embroider her this little horse scene.
I used some white silk dupioni, traced the design from Sharon Bennett's book and started stitching, chosing colors as I went along. I also wanted to put some color inside the embroidered outlines, so I tried some watercolor paint using Neocolor II, which are basically some water-soluble wax pastels. I had to order some little brushes and I found some miniature ones from Silver Brush.
Having never done much painting of any kind and certainly not on fabric when I did that project, I had no idea how things would turn out. After using the wax pastels, I added a little water with the tiny brushes and the whole scene turned into a watercolor one in front of my amazed eyes. That was a great learning experience and I promised myself then that I would be using more painting on future projects. One of the thing I love the most is to marry many different techniques on the same project.
When the painted and embroidered little horse scene was completed, I turned it into a needlecase for her.
For the inside of the needlecase I remember trying to find some appropriate fabric in my stash that would match the color of the fence, but of course I could not find any, so I decided to dye some. The fabric was originally all white with little miniature flowers. I did not want the dye to be uniformed all over but with spots darker and others lighter and one of the photo below shows the top of the needlecase with a peek of the inside fabric.
(Photo showing the little horse scene after it has been watercoloured and embroidered)
(Photo showing the dyed fabric inside the needlecase)
(Drawing from this book used for this project)
