Happy first day of spring! Look, some bunnies are here to celebrate! I just finished up an auction project that I worked on with my daughter’s fourth grade class. Initially we were thinking of making a large-scale cross-stitched canvas, but there are two bunnies and a guinea pig in this classroom and it just felt like we needed to capture their personality rather than making a stylized version of a bunny. So I bought some tapestry wool and we got stitching! I tried using some yarn I had on hand, but it frayed as it was pulled through, so I’d definitely recommend using tapestry wool which is especially designed for stitching.
Each of the kids had a turn with this project, but I did end up doing lots of stitching myself to get this done in time for the auction this weekend. One of the teachers helped and they were both so patient with me being in their classroom all last week, even though I still have trouble not talking in class!
I started with the photo below that I edited in Photoshop because of course the animals wouldn’t pose like this. Then I had the sudden realization that these sweet little bunnies don’t look that much like bunnies at all! One is a big fluffball and the other has down-turned ears. And the guinea pig was tricky! We stitched on colored canvas fabric, then I added some colored asterisks stitched up top, then stretched it over a canvas, which also serves to hide the messy back side. I think it would have been interesting if we’d stitched some brightly colored patches into their fur, but another idea for another time!
This was a lot of work, but the kids have been so excited and I think it would look adorable hanging in a child’s room. I really enjoyed taking the time to relax and stitch by hand, and now I want to make portraits of our own pets. I just have a quilt to finish up and I’m done with auction duties!
This is the cutest thing ever 🙂
OK, cutest thing every! Maybe I am biased because we brought 3 guinea pigs home from a bunny, guinea pig, and chinchilla rescue but this is just adorable! Wonderful work and such a lucky school to have you creating auction items!
I meant to say that we brought them home TODAY so finding your post seemed very serendipitous. Perhaps you might tell us more about how you created the colored canvas on which to stitch the pig and bunnies. Did you paint a needlepoint canvas?
been following you for sometime and this time, I must say you have just absolutely warmed my heart with this! You are amazing!
aaaw this is cute.
Lovely and adorable.
well done;-D
They do look like real bunnies! The one on the left is a lop which always have their ears hanging down. I’d guess the white one is a lion head as he’s so fluffy. Lovely embroidery.
I really like the guinea pig. Very expressive!
WOW…amazing work! Very impressive talent
So very cute! Love the guinea pig’s face! Must show my kids & see if they want to try a similar stitched picture of our bunny!
I’m kind of working on a coin purse with a guinea pig embroidered on the front for my sister who has suddenly gone guinea pig mad. I’ve adapted your stitched guinea to a pattern on the purse(for personal use only of course). I hope that’s ok. There are not a lot of guinea pig patterns around on the web I’ve noticed.
Of course! I’d love to see how it turns out!