FABRIC PIECING BY DIGITIZING - Part 2

As part of Part 2,  I will be explaining my fabric piecing technique further. This Black Labrador piece is my dog,  Maybelle.  We got her from a rescue in June and she is almost 10 months old here.  She had a rough start in life, but we are happy to say she is a loving, sweet girl.

This is my second attempt at fabric piecing by digitizing and it been a great learning experience.  In Fabric Piecing by Digitizing - Part 1, I roughed out the basic design.  The eyes I covered in  another blog post called Look into a Dog's Eye.  In Part 2 I tweaked the design and refined it so it was ready for stitching.

I am using Stitch Artist by Embrilliance for digitizing.  Its one of the most user friendly programs and there are many many Stitch Artist Videos to help you get started.  The online PDF manual is full of great instruction.

For my fabric piecing project I used Stitch Artist Level 1. The whole project is done in applique pieces (except the eyes, collar hardware & tag and highlighting details)   Stitch Artist Level 1, Controls Part 3, Applique video is a good reference in working with applique.

The picture on the left is the one I used for my design.  The picture on the right is the design that I stitched out

And here is my working file in Stitch Artist:

Maybelle is a very very black dog....and the picture doesn't exactly have all the shading that I added to this design.

All the applique pieces are set at a ZigZag at 3.2mm.  I started with 2mm and it was too small and for me, it  left too many ragged edges. I find that the ZigZag stitch looks larger on the screen than it actually is when you stitch it out on fabric.  

Face:  Maybelle has a very black face....  When I lightened up the picture a bit, I could see light on her cheekbones and shadows underneath her eyes.  The light on the cheekbones I used lighter applique pieces.  For the shadows under the eyes I used a satin border with pointed ends, density set at 6.9 pt and width of stitch 2mm.

Ears:  I added more texture to the ears to give them more dimension.  Her big ears aren't flat, they have some curves to them.  Adding the applique pieces gives them the curve they need to look more realistic. 

Muzzle and nose:  On the stitch out, the nose came out a little rounder than I would like...but the idea was to see the reflection of the light on her muzzle and nose.  I added fill stitches to the muzzle instead of fabric because I wanted it to be more subtle.  On the fill I used no underlay, inclination at a 45 degree angle.  The stitch density is at 12 pt., I did not travel the edge.  I also feathered on both sides 32%.  

Body:  Here I didn't really follow the picture but made pieces and moved them around til I achieved the results I wanted.  Their fur has a lot of movement....even in a very black dog.  I looked at other paper piecing pictures and tweaked this quit a bit from my original rough design in Part 1.  I looked at a lot of other Black Labradors to see how their fur lies....and adjusted my design accordingly.  

Collar and Tag:  The collar itself is just an applique like the rest of the pieces with a bean stitch run to show definition on the collar.  The tag is a fill using density at 4 pt, pattern Corn Row 2.  The metal pieces are all done in satin stitches, 4 pt, except the tag ring which is a bean stitch.  

Here are some pictures of the stitching process:

 

I think I made Maybelle too dark...but I think it looks a lot like her.  I am pleased with the results. Here is a larger version of the completed design.  Its at is original size which is 7 inches by 10 inches. On this larger version you can see better the detail of the stitch out.

Thanks goes to Brian, Lisa and everyone at Embrilliance who have been extremely helpful as I learn Stitch Artist.  Also thank you to Jeannie and her blog, Nonna's Scraps.  Her explanation of techniques is outstanding and I refer to her blog often.  Also to Nadia and her blog, With Glittering Eyes.  This lady is so talented and her blog is filled with great ideas and techniques.

LOOK INTO A DOG'S EYE

I will return to working on the Dog Fabric Piecing, but a few words now about digitizing dog eyes. They can be tricky.  There are many subtleties in colors and working with those subtleties helps you make a more realistic eye.... I am no expert.... but here is how I tackled those cute little eyes that always melt our hearts.

I am using Stitch Artist by Embrilliance for digitizing.  Its one of the most user friendly programs and there are many many Stitch Artist Videos to help you get started.  The online PDF manual is full of great instruction.  For my fabric piecing project I used Stitch Artist Level 1.

There are 6 parts to digitizing an eye and I have listed them in the order I digitize them:

Background (Sclera)  For humans this is the "whites" of the eyes.  For dogs...their irises are pretty big....only showing the sclera at the outer corners of the eye.  They also have a inner eye lid (bet you didn't know that....I only found out when I tried to put eye drops in my dog's eyes... impossible....that's another subject!) So I chose to make the background a darker shade than the iris.  I then add any white as a highlight after the whole eye is made.

Outer Iris  - Darker part of the outer eye

Inner Iris - Lighter part of the inner eye

Pupil - Black

Highlights - Usually white - this gives life to the eye.

Outline - usually a color that will define the eye....in my case Black

Starting with the Background I draw with points the outline of the eye.  I upped the number on the density of the fill as I don't want to make the eye so dense its hard to stitch.  Remember with density....lower the number if you want more density....up the number if you want less density:

The outer iris is next.  I changed the density of the fill to 7 from 12. Again I use draw with points and made a circle for left eye.  I don't use the circle in the shape file menu because I like more nodes to play with. I copy and paste it and move to right eye.  I move the nodes around and make them contour to the picture.  I then copy and paste the two outer irises to be used to make the inner irises.

I reduce the size and change the color of the copies, and move them into place.....there I have the inner irises.  I copy and paste the inner irises to use for the pupils.

ALL FILLS HAVE A 3 pt pull compensation.

Its looking very "eyelike"   I reduce the size and change the color of the copies, and move them into place.....there I have the pupil.  I changed the stitch to a satin column.  Density 4.

Now for the highlights.... I used a fill stitch the corners of the eye and a satin colum for the highlight on the pupil.

For the Satin Columns I used a 2 pt. pull compensation

For the outline of the eye I am still working out what looks best.  I tried a Bean Stitch, but it did not stand out enough against the black fabric....maybe it would stand out more on other colored fabric....will have to give that a go.  So to outline you can either use a run using a bean stitch or a run using a back stitch set at 1.0mm.

Bean Stitch Outline

Back Stitch Outline

I did a stitch out of my dog eyes....the second pic is an enlargement.

Here is the full stitch out of my Maybelle Dog.  I will blog about that soon.  I am far from an expert on digitizing but I am very pleased with these eyes.  Maybelle eyes are lighter than they appear on this picture.  They are actually brown.  Good Dog!

FABRIC PIECING BY DIGITIZING - Part 1

I always wanted to take my love of machine embroidery to the next level.... DIGITIZING. But what caught my eye about digitizing was taking a photograph and combining fabric and stitches to create a piece of artwork from that photograph. I studied a lot of paper piecing designs to get the feel of doing this. Its a cool affect....combining the right fabrics to get the right subtleties of the photograph.

I am using Stitch Artist by Embrilliance for digitizing.  Its one of the most user friendly programs and there are many many Stitch Artist Videos to help you get started.  The online PDF manual is full of great instruction.

For my fabric piecing project I used Stitch Artist Level 1. The whole project is done in applique pieces (except the eyes, collar and highlighting details)   Stitch Artist Level 1, Controls Part 3, Applique video is a good reference in working with applique.  I will cover the eyes in a later blog.

As you can see my subject is my sweet 9 1/2 month old Lab mix puppy, Maybelle.

I opened Stitch Artist and brought in this photo of Maybelle by selecting the Image button. Clicking the Image button brings up a dialogue box to locate your image.  I have Level 3 of Stitch Artist so I might have more buttons than those you have in Level 1.  Once the image is brought into Stitch Artist, I resized the image to the size I wanted. I then changed the transparency to 50%.  Maybelle is very dark and this helped me get more definition on the image.

When I start, I usually start with the larger pieces first.  Head, ears body. Then go back to do the smaller pieces...nose, eyes, muzzle and collar.  I use Draw with points. I don't worry about order right now....

I can tweak the actual shapes later.  The body will go first then the head and then the ears.  Now we will zoom in to put in the details.  

Again, the shapes of the details can be tweaked later as you zoom in to catch the subtleties of the image.