Face to Face

It was nice to have a day at home yesterday with nothing in particular to do. I spent quite a bit of time on the Hocuspocusville block. The whole right side is finished from top to bottom now.

After taking that picture, I rehooped it, but then continued on. Now the whole roof is done as well, and I've moved the hoop down to the next part. 

After that, I did some walking. My 10k steps have suffered a little bit the last few days. I'm making my goal most days, but it's hard to force myself to walk on days when I'm busy. I decided to get back on the wagon, er, treadmill yesterday, and I got 'er done. It's too soon to say for sure, but I believe walking is making me feel a little more toned than previously, and I've lost a couple of pounds without even trying. Hopefully, I'll continue to notice results...or maybe I'll decide it's just my imagination. Whatever. It can only be good, right?

So then I got to work on Maggie's pawtrait. The first step with these is to use the posterized version of my image to trace in the colors. I strive not to be too detailed, or it becomes a nightmare of applique. Even at that, I'm always ending up with lots of little pieces.

I use a transparency and an ultra fine point Sharpie for this. The Sharpie ink doesn't smear as some other inks will.

It ends up looking a lot like a paint by number...and it kind of is.

And this is applique, so you want to flip it over and make all the pieces a mirror image of the original.

A pressing sheet is essential for this project. I want to be able to stick the fusible pieces together, and also retain the ability to move them around. I use tweezers to peel them off the pressing sheet when I need to reposition them. And with that mess in the image above, I'm constantly have to decide whether to put this or that piece over or under another piece. The transparency can be seen through the pressing sheet, but I can also hold it over my work and use it to position the applique pieces. 

The eyes are first. The secret to making the eyes look realistic is to do the pupils first, then put the iris over the top, then the lids over the top of that. The details will be stitched in when I do the top-stitching.

Maggie's colors are harder than Gracie's or Smitty's. I'm not sure why...perhaps it's her "dilute" quality. I considered stopping when I'd gone this far...and it took me about two hours to get here.

But then I decided to add the portion to the right of the nose. When I got this far, I was tired of working on it for the day.

That piece on the right might be too bright. I'll have to see how I feel about it when I add the highlights above the nose. I can always peel it up and use a different color if I need to.

As for Maggie, her favorite game right now is to lie in wait at the bottom of the stairs and terrorize Smitty when he comes down. He turns on his lasers for safety.

Hm...might want to turn on my high beams for this.

I knew it! There she is!!!

Moooommmmmm!!! She's bothering me! A little help, please! I hope you're not posting these pictures on the blog. 

It's pretty funny seeing the tables turned, although Smitty doesn't see the humor in it. 

So today I need to catch up on a little housework, and then I'll continue on with my attempt to recreate Miss Maggie.