Valentines Day Craftbook Challenge Fail

Check out this cute little frog! A dear reader, Raquel, made him following my instructions for the felt owl measuring tape and was kind enough to send me a photo of him. He is so great, good job Raquel. (I really love getting this kind of mail, if anyone out there completes any of my projects, please please please send me a photo!)

I want to thank you all again for entering the giveaway, your kind comments were overwhelming as always. Congratulations to the the winners! Gem of GemmaJoy, from Brisbane Australia, and Kristin of Kleas, from Minneapolis MN, your keychain clutches and earrings are in the mail. You both have lovely blogs and I am so happy that the randomizer picked you :)
So I had this fabulous idea to make myself some cute zakka-style oven mitts for Valentines Day. I don't even have plain-old regular oven mitts and I burn myself every time I try to take something out of the oven so I was pretty excited about this project. I gathered up my materials: some pretty vintage cotton rickrack and Japanese crochet lace trim, some linen-esque fabric with a cute red stripe pattern, pretty red and white dot lining and some space age silvery batting. And to make my project over the top, cross stitched little fawns from the wonderful book, A Rainbow of Stitches, by Agnes Delage-Calvet, Anne Sohier-Fournel, Muriel Brunet, and Francoise Ritz. 

How can this go wrong I ask you? OK, on to the FAIL part of my Valentines Day Craft Book Challenge project...
Do you see what I see? Maybe we need to do a little closeup: 

Is it just me, or does that little fawn look, sort of, well, Grinchy? I think it isn't just me. These little fawns are evil twins. I can't have them on my oven mitts. They look like they might burn me with their disapproving stares. Really, I don't know how I didn't notice this until I had appliqued the little red hearts and rick rack around each of them.

I think maybe it is just one of those problems that eyes are so dang expressive, and my little half-stitch is somehow making the deer all squinty and mean, and if you tried this, your half-stitch would make the deer look sad, or happy, or confused etc...

The project picture of these little fawns in the book look decidedly sweet, which is why I chose them in the first place:

So what am I going to do with these little hearts? Should I make them into snarky anti-valentines? Give them to someone nearsighted? Carefully unpick all the stitches and burn them so they can't come alive at night and do the bidding of an evil overlord? (perhaps I have watched too much science fiction)

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Tell a friend how much you care about them.

So Cute! Tiny Needle Felted Fawn

 

Just a quick post to show you this little needle felted fawn. I think she is the cutest thing I have made all year! I was inspired by this little deer made by LuckyNielsen.

I figured out how to make my little deer by breaking down the body into a series of simple shapes. You know those "How to Draw" books we all had as kids that start with simple ovals and cylinders, and with a few extra lines to smooth between them, you have suddenly drawn a dog or a horse or something? I used the same idea, but imagined the shapes in 3D. When you connect the shapes together, using your needle, you smooth the transitions, and with a little extra poking, refine the shapes to look more like the animal you want to achieve. I think you could make anything you can imagine using this principle.

I used pipe cleaners inside the legs for added stability, but I didn't make a wire armature for the whole body, as I have seen other people do. I did it this way because I wanted to felt each leg individually (which is easier) and then attach them one at a time to the body.

This little fawn is only 3" tall. For the base, I made a grassy knoll out of felt that fits inside a large glass tea light holder from Ikea. Then I added a little Japanese cotton lace and some vintage flowers to up the cuteness factor to 100. I considered adding a little bow around her neck, but I thought that might make me pass out from a cute-overload so I held back.

PS: When you start making a super cute little fawn like this, you are just stabbing at blobs of brown felt. But when you add the eyes and the ears and it really starts taking shape, it is like you are repeatedly stabbing Bambi. Which can be a little disturbing. Forewarned is Forearmed.