Creative

This took me forever, but I'm proud of how it turned out. I didn't get many early progress pictures, so all I have are some from the last couple of weeks. The whole thing is hand stitched, including the whipped edge.

Nearly finished piece without the outlining

Outlined

Off the hoop, washed, cut, and whip-stitched

I think I'd like to try some more variety on the types of stitches I use to fill areas next time. I pretty much only used basic back stitches and satin stitch for this. I tried a tight seed stitch initially for the dog's fur, but didn't like it and spent a whole evening picking it out.

I also found the process of washing the piece (this isn't strictly necessary but I had used water soluble pen to trace the image and needed to wash it to get the ink out) and cutting it very nerve-wracking. It took so damn long to sew and I was terrified I was going to fuck it up right at the end. There were a couple of spots where I felt like I didn't cut it quite as evenly as I wanted, but after adding the stitched edge you can't really tell at all. I also had no idea what I was doing when fusing the initial piece to the felt backing with interfacing, and the interfacing didn't fully adhere to the fabric in a few places, but it worked out fine.

All in all it took forever and there are a few noticeable mistakes, but overall I'm pretty proud of it and I'm hoping the next one doesn't take so long.