Faux Taxidermy Fox stitch-a-long: Part 4

It's time to finish sewing Frankie the Fox!

If you are just joining in you get head back to Part 1 HERE.

Ok so grab his nose and pin in place covering the point of his nose as shown.

Before we sew his nose in place it is time to add his smile. Thread your needle with 2 strands of black floss
and hide your knot under his nose.

Here I have drawn on his smile with a fading fabric marker to make it easier. You could use pencil as long as you stitch over it to cover the pencil well.

Use back stitch to add his smile and then hide you finishing knot under his nose again.

Make sure his nose is still in the right position and pin.

Then stitch in place using 1 strand of black floss and either whip or blanket stitch.

On to the ears. Thread your needle with 1 strand of brown floss and attach it to the bottom corner of the ear.

Pin the ear in place.

Here is the positioning from the side.

Pin the second ear on to make sure they look right.

Now hold the ear down and start ladder stitching it onto the head. So make a small stitch on the head as shown then...

 ...a small stitch on the ear and carry on like this pausing at the seam in the ear to make sure the ear is still in the right spot and then continue.

Repeat this process on the inside of the ear.

Sew the other ear on in the same way and he should look like this.

And a view from the side.

Now it't time to attach Frankie to the hoop. Choose either a 5" or 6" hoop and find some thick card, scissors and a pencil.

place your hoop on the cardboard and trace around the inside edge.

And then cut it out and put to one side.

Grab you chosen backing fabric. As you can see I am not friends with my iron but you could probably iron yours!

Loosen you hoop and stretch the fabric tightly between it. If you have a thin fabric I recommend placing a layer of a plain white fabric underneath your patterned fabric. Do the screw up tight again.

Trim the fabric around the edge of the hoop.

Now place Frankie in round about the centre of the hoop, hold tight to him and the hoop and flip it over...

...and place a pin through the backing fabric and into the back of Frankie's neck too. Flip the hoop back over and make sure he is still in the correct position and then add a lot more pins to hold him securely in place.

It should look a little like this.

Now thread your needle with 2 strands of brown floss and put a giant knot at the end. Then bring your needle up from under the hoop, coming up just in front of the seam of the fox.

You are going to use a ladder stitch (like you did for the ear) so place a stitch through the fox then...

...pass your needle down through the hoop then..

....up through the hoop and make another stitch through the fox, then down through the hoop again.

Continue in this way until you have about 6 stitches and then pull them tight. I find putting a bit of pressure on the fox as I pull seems to help. You need to pull the thread tight after every few stitches otherwise it becomes to difficult and you might end up with loose threads. When you have stitched half way round it gets a bit tricky to reach the back so I just do 1 long stitch at the top of the back of the neck so it looks like this...

Continue ladder stitching around, pulling tight as you go.

I have added my little wooden logo tag here.

Thread you needle with 2 strands of ordinary white machine sewing cotton and place a large knot at the end. Now use a running stitch to start gathering the fabric.

Continue the running stitch all away around, pulling it tight as you go. Once all the way around just trim your thread and let it hang loose - don't knot it.

Now grab your circle of card and lay it over the back...

...and force it into the back of the hoop. You will see the card starts to crease which is fine because it means it will stay in place firmly.

Once in it will look like this. You do need to include the card as it will keep your fox sitting nicely and will stop your fabric sagging.

Now just make sure the screw at the top of your hoop is nice and tight and you are done...

CONGRATULATIONS you did it! Frankie the Fox is complete and ready to be hung on the wall.

I really hope you found this tutorial useful. I will be doing another faux taxidermy stitch-a-long again soon so let me know which pattern you would like to do next, the giraffe, the rhino, the panda.....let me know.

Thank you so much for following along with my first stitch-a-long, as always if you have any questions please let me know.

Kim
xxx

Faux Taxidermy Fox stitch-a-long: Part 3

The Cupcake Cutie Stitch-a-long continues. In Part 3 we start sewing....yay!

Missed Part 1? Find it HERE

Grab your pattern and turn to page three. We are completing Step 1 and 2 which will make the ears.

You would have already cut out all your felt pieces (if not find part 2 HERE) so gather your 6 ear pieces as shown above.

Lay the white pieces on top of the light brown pieces making sure the white pieces are mirror images of each other.

Then lay these on top of the cinnamon ear pieces.

Pin the ear layers in place. We are going to start stitching on the point where my very un-photogenic finger is pointing!

Thread your needle with 1 x strand of brown embroidery floss or cotton. We are going to be stitching around most of the ear in either whip or blanket stitch. I prefer blanket stitch but you may find whip stitch easier if you are a beginner. There is a handy stitch guide on page ???????of the Fox pattern if you need a reference. Start by inserting your needle between the 2 brown layers as this will hide your knot...

....then keep stitching until...

....you reach the bottom of the inverted 'v'.

Repeat this whole process on the second ear.

Now fold your ear in half and pin. Now we are going to either whip or blanket stitch down this small edge with 1 x strand of thread.

Again you want to hide your knot between the layers and stitch the short edge together.

Then you finished ear will look like this. Stitch along the edge of the other ear and then put the ears aside.

Now onto the eyes....

Sew white eye reflections on using 1 strand of white floss and whip stitch.

Then sew black eyeball on using 1 strand of black floss and whip stitch.

Time for the eyelashes. Using 2 strand of black floss and 2 stitches of back stitch create the first eyelash...

...then bring your needle back up as shown and add another eyelash (using 2 stitches of back stitch) at about a 90 degree angle to the first...

Once you have completed one eye, start on the next one REMEMBERING that it is a mirror image of the first. Now put your eyes aside for a moment.

Take you 2 face pieces and right sides up make them face each other. Take your 2 white neck pieces and position them as shown. You will remember that we placed a pin at the nose point of  both pieces so we know which way is up.

Pin in place along the lower edge....

...then using 1 strand of white floss use a running stitch to sew the white piece on following the top curve.
Now time to bring the eyes back...

Grab your face template so you can work out where to position your eyes...

...Sometimes it helps to actually lay the pattern on top of your felt or even cut out the inside of the eyes shape on the pattern piece for perfect placement.

Pin eyes in place. I like to lay the 2 face pieces with right sides together just to double check that the eye pieces are both in the correct place.

The sew the eyes on using 1 strand of light brown floss and whip stitch.

Take the top of the head piece and face it right side up. Fold in half with right sides together...

...and pin.

Then either blanket or whip stitch along this edge using 1 strand of matching floss.

When right side up it will look like above.

Take the back of the head piece and lay it right side down as shown above. Pin.

Whip or blanket stitch in place using 1 strand of matching floss. Open it out and place it right side down....

....and grab the left side of the head as shown above.

Pin the tip of the nose to the tip of the 'top of the head' piece. You can just see the corner of it poking out on the rounded bit of the nose.

Now you are going to pin this point as indicated by my finger above to.....

....this point....

.....so it will look like above.

Now start pinning the top of the head piece around the face piece, easing it as you go to follow the curve.
Place about 4 pins then stop.

Now start pinning at the bottom of the neck (where you placed the second pin) and work your way up until the first side of the face is pinned on.

Then stitch the using 1 x strand of matching thread and whip or blanket stitch.

Now flip your fox over and start pinning the other side of the face on. Start by lining up and pinning the white patches and then carry on pinning around the top as you did for the first side.

Use 1 strand of matching floss and whip or blanket stitch start at the point indicated by my finger and stitch over the top of the head...

....and continue stitching over the tip of the nose, stopping at the white.

Then thread your needle with 1 thread of white floss and continue stitching down the white neckline....

Then re-thread with brown and sew the last little piece of the head together.

Time to start stuffing. Start with small pieces of stuffing and push them right into the point of a the nose. A knitting needle works well to get the stuffing right into the tip. Continue stuffing to round out his face.

If your stitching line is raised as shown above then you need to add more stuffing so....

...it looks more like this smoother line above. When he is fully stuffed flip him over....

....and pin the back flap down.

Using 1 strand of matching floss and either whip or blanket stitch sew 3/4 of the way around.

Add more stuffing and then continue to sew closed.

And then he will look a little like this.

Time for a well deserved sewing break. In the next and final post we will add his face details and ears and attach him to the hoop. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE NEXT TUTORIAL.


Happy stitching and if you have any questions please ask.

Kim
xxx