anatomy embroidery!

i mentioned before that i was doing a swap on flickr, as part of the phat quarter group. the theme for the swap was "anatomy", and it had very loose guidelines, 2.5"x3.5" for an ATC, and up to about 5"x7" for everything else, 2D or 3D.

i was sending to jojobooster, who's in new zealand. i really like making swap packages reflect the recipient, it makes the end result more meaningful to me, so i messaged her and asked her a bunch of questions before i got started. that made it harder! i kept trying to think of things that would include her whole family, and fit with the anatomy theme, AND still be within the size guidelines!

eventually i gave up on the idea of trying to do a family tree style anatomy piece, and decided to go with something that reflected more of how she herself feels about her family. this was right around mother's day, which i'm sure influenced it!

i decided to do a piece that showed the anatomy of a pregnant woman. i google image searched and found an image that was detailed enough to make it worthwhile. i traced the image onto some light pink kona cotton using a washaway marker, and picked out 4 different shades of pink/burgundy to embroider with.

this was the end result - "the anatomy of motherhood"


i LOVE how it turned out!

after i finished the embroidery, i cut it to size and cut a piece of quilt batting that matched. i used sewtakeahike's awesome rose tutorial to create fabric roses in the corners, using strips of jersey knit that i cut from a piece i got at swap-o-rama-rama (that i still haven't made a skirt of, of course!) . i played around with them a bit first, and was very thankful that i did - my first attempts were not pretty at all! my biggest problem is that i'm a perfectionist, so i was all concentrating on perfect folds and stuff, and i kept ending up with square roses! eventually i started going with the flow a bit more, and they turned out really cute. i played around a bit with the measurements she gives. the big roses are 3/4", but i think the strip was shorter, and the small roses were 1/2" strips, and again shorter.

some more pics

after rinsing, before pressing, obviously!



closeups of the roses





i backed the embroidery and batting with a bright pink kona, and wrote the title and date on the back. (i signed it too, but i've blurred that out...) i added a hanging sleeve at the top before i sewed the binding on, and then handstitched it and the binding down. did you notice that i bound it with one of my new batiks? i couldn't resist using it!


i didn't think to measure it before i sent it! i know it was larger than the size guidelines, but i forget by how much. i'll have to ask her to measure it for me!



jojobooster received it today, and thankfully, loves it! i was so worried about! after i sent it i started thinking what if she has infertility problems? what if her kids are adopted? i didn't ask! how painful it would be for her! i worried about the connotation of white with the pink colour scheme too, but at least she had a few pics up that showed me that wasn't a (visible) woman of colour! usually when i do swaps it's on craftster, or a personal swap with another blogger, so i can get more info about them! but it was okay, she loved it, alls well that ends well!