The furry hare

First, I’d like to say VERY many thanks to all the people who responded to the offer of a free design last week, and especially to Spanky, whose idea it was. It was fantastic to get in touch with you all, and I hope you will have good luck with the design. There will be a new free design up in the first week of January, but meanwhile the Mexican bird is still available. But if you've asked for the design and I haven't responded, PLEASE write again from a different e-mail address. I've had a lot of problems with bouncing messages

Now back to what I’ve been working on recently. In the past I’ve used my embellishing machine to add felted details directly to embroideries (see, for example, the cat posted on 15 November 2012.) But I’ve also been looking at the possibility of using felted fabric appliqueed onto designs. At the moment I’m working on a large panel that involves (among other things) a hare, and that seemed a good subject for felted applique

I started with a very loosely-woven muslin – almost a cheesecloth, really – and in order to stiffen it up and add a coloured background I painted it in streaks of different shades of brown before embellishing it with various bits of wool and yarn. I also added a little bit of gold roving, just for a subtle metallic glitter (although you can’t really see it on the scans)

Here is the embellished fabric right side up…

The "right" side of the embellished cloth

and here is a view from the underside.

The "wrong" side

Of course the underside looks a lot better for this purpose, so I stitched the hare using the embellished fabric “bottom-side up” as the applique. It worked pretty well. The result is a bit scruffy and hairy, but that just makes it look all the more like a furry animal. There is some overstitching on top of the applique (you can see it clearly on the back leg) and I’ll have to adjust that a little bit. But overall I’m quite happy with it

The furry hare with an embellished coat