Embroidered Bully

I'm sort of ashamed to say that I've never really embroidered anything. I've always loved the look of it, but just never really got around to giving it a try. I cross-stitched a little when I was a kid, but I never really stuck with it. But then after looking at sites like Feeling Stitchy and Sublime Stitching, a magnetic force seems to be pulling me toward stitching.

So I did a little bulldog pillow in honor of the bulldog Shane and I will someday have.

I found a photograph of a bulldog on Flickr, and traced the outline onto wax paper. I made a few drawing adjustments to make her look super cute and kind of silly.

I then used double-stick tape around the edges (the part not drawn on) to attach the outline to my fabric. I layered my fabric on a piece of leftover quilt batting and then put them both in my embroidery hoop.

Then I just backstiched all the way around her. I used three different colors of embroidery floss: a light blue for the body, a black-blue color for the face features, and a coral for the floppy, sloppy tongue.

When I was done, I carefully peeled the wax paper off. I used tweezers to pull out the parts that got trapped under my stitches. It's not as time consuming or tedious as you'd think.

And there she is, all done. I sewed some fabric to the back, did a light stuffing, and threw the little pillow on my bed. It was lots of fun and didn't cost more than $2 since I had everything but the hoop. Now I can't wait to do more of it!