Reve, Author at ReveDreams.com

Bonus Post: Iron Craft Challenge #17

I wanted to make Lion’s “Two Peas in a Pod” amigurumi (registration required to see pattern) as soon as I saw it, but when does someone who’s not planning a wedding or bridal shower have a reason to make an explicitly wedding-themed project? Well, as it turns out, when Iron Craft takes the British royal wedding as its inspiration and sets weddings as the theme of the week. Until I remembered this pattern I wasn’t going to participate, since I have a number of wedding gifts to make but they are either already in progress or items I can’t complete in a week.

I added some silver to the mix, in the form of a hatband and trim on the bridal veil. Crocheting with metallic floss gets a big thumbs down – the strands would either prefer to have nothing to do with each other, or they catch on each other. However, I am very happy with how it came out! (except perhaps for Mr. Pea’s mouth.)

Stumpy got his one-day license for this.

Smile for the camera!

You always need a silly picture.

I made them grinning and winking because I wanted joy. Long ago I cut a 50th anniversary announcement out of the paper – they had used a wedding picture for the announcement, and happiness shines out of it.

I cut it out as a reminder that unless I feel the way they look, I shouldn’t walk down the aisle. Also, they’re just darn cute.

Excellent ideas

Before I even began crocheting, I trolled Etsy for amigurumi patterns. My sister loves Peeps, so I was delighted to find Chiwaluv’s neon chickens pattern. Her chicks have exactly the right blobbiness to be Peeps.

Kate’s current Peeps, all official plushies, are named Peep, Megapeep, Gigapeep, and Terapeep, and she mentioned she was hoping for a Picopeep. I thought I could make her at least a Micropeep out of embroidery floss. Then I realized crocheting sewing thread with a 10 hook (1.3 mm) would be terrific for a Picopeep. I have a couple dozen tiny spools of thread, bought for no good reason in a large bag at the dollar store, and their odd colors included a few plausible Peep hues.

With my bionic vision and retractable tweezer fingers, I completed Picopeep in a mere five hours, a trivial 500% increase over the length of construction of Micropeep. Let’s see the results:

Roses say “I love you.” Sewing-thread crochet peeps say “I love you more than eyesight.”

It is a little-known fact that Peeps’ native terrain is rugged, and in fact they are semi-arboreal.

In seriousness, one difficulty is that, like floss, thread is inelastic. This makes, in particular, the first stitch of the second round very tight. It is also difficult to see the stitches – strong light makes a world of difference! The thread twisted up as I went, though I might have been able to fix that by unrolling it from the spool in advance. I found I would make unintentional increases because the new stitch takes so little room on the previous round’s stitch that it was hard to tell last-used from first-unused. I am curious to know whether a larger hook would be easier; I think the hook I use for embroidery floss is proportionally larger.

To note: Peeps are a registered trademark of Just Born, Inc.

Embroidery ambitions

I love crazy quilts. Although patchwork quilts can be quite beautiful, I seem to lack the “precision” gene needed for equal angles and clean lines, and I suspect I would find it aggravating. However, crazy quilts are on the table.

Many of the lovely historical quilts have themes, such as fans or flowers. I once entertained the notion of a quilt about my history: schools, hobbies, places I’ve lived. That idea never got off the ground, however, and the project that did is the Children’s Book Quilt.

I have a couple of shelves’ worth of children’s books despite having no children, and a few favorite illustrators – Shel Silverstein, Maurice Sendak, Tove Jansson. The children’s book quilt will have embroidered versions of illustrations from specific books, as well as applique images and motifs, and possibly even some painted images (for Leo Lionni’s books, in particular). I will give a complete rundown of the ideas I have next time I finish an embroidery piece, but for now I want to share the two I’ve done so far and talk about the process.

I use tracing paper to copy the images out of the book with a pencil, darken the main lines, and then trace them again onto wash-away embroidery stabilizing paper. Then I cut them out and pin them to fabric, stitching on the lines. I use my beloved DMC color card (I am so glad I got one before they switched from actual floss samples to photos – the sheen is different; I can’t imagine it’s as accurate) to pick floss colors if appropriate. All the embroidery is just freehand straight stitch or backstitch; when I finally put the individual pieces together I’ll use fancier stitches for edges.

The more recent is Shel Silverstein’s bearded man, from Where the Sidewalk Ends:

Shel Silverstein's bearded man in embroidery

I realized after the fact that I fig-leafed him a bit, covering his bare behind with beard, but I am still thrilled at how well he came out – especially his feet. In the tightly-stitched areas, however, the wash-away paper is not living up to his name. It withstood rinsing in water, soaking in white vinegar, rinsing in water again, and two trips through the washing machine pinned flat in a mesh bag. Ideas are welcome.

Less recent is the Dodecahedron from Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, illustrated by Jules Feiffer.

Phantom Tollbooth's dodecahedron in embroidery

His stitching is not as good as the bearded man (possibly I used too many strands; I can’t remember), but it will do. He had the same problem with the wash-away paper, especially in his eyes. However, the fabric, though it’s hard to tell, is white with pastel circles stitched into it, so I just re-stitched the pupils that were hidden by paper. I only noticed as I was re-stitching the eyes that his right arm is perfectly aligned with the underlying circle.

I’ve been trying to stick to books I actually had as a child. I have We Were Tired of Living In a House (the beautiful illustrations by Doris Burn, not the lame and generic new ones) in progress and something from Finn Family Moomintroll (Tove Jansson) set up but unstitched. I am dissatisfied with the fabric for the latter, though, and would probably prefer a different image, so I may break my rule and use an image from a more recently-acquired Moomin book. My first multicolor embroidery will probably be Bananas Gorilla from the Richard Scarry books, because he’s the raddest. I am a slow embroiderer, but hope to complete this quilt before I am of retirement age!

Note: the copyrights to the illustrations in Where the Sidewalk Ends and The Phantom Tollbooth are held by Evil Eye Music, Inc., and Jules Feiffer, respectively.