Okay, some important things to note here:

- I have literally never done this before, which says more about what an amazing teacher Danielle is than any like, stitching talent I have undiscovered.

- I know the project was to create a flower, but I'm so amped for Animal Crossing: New Horizons that I had to try this with my best girl Fauna. Plus I'm more familiar with her design, so I could think more about practicing stitching than getting the image Just Right (tm).

This is Fauna, for those who don't know:

Fauna from Animal Crossing! - image 1 - student project

Here we go!

Fauna from Animal Crossing! - image 2 - student project

I didn't have masking tape, so I used painter's tape. It did not work, don't bother trying. Here's my terrifying initial design that looks like an alien.

Fauna from Animal Crossing! - image 3 - student project

I started with the main colors of her fur and ... messed it up repeatedly. How did I do this? The world may never know. Worked out fine though!

Fauna from Animal Crossing! - image 4 - student project

Here's the base of her fur all done. You can see where I got more comfortable layering the long and short stitch on top of itself. I tried to move the direction of her fur out from where her nose would be, but around her ears it got a little dicey. Again, the air-erasable pen design is terrifying and will haunt me forever.

Fauna from Animal Crossing! - image 5 - student project

I wanted her face to have a different texture than the rest of her fur, so I went with a satin stitch, which turned out much looser and less smooth than I thought it would. We persevere! Around this time is where I got rid of the painter's tape.

Fauna from Animal Crossing! - image 6 - student project

Then while doing her ear I stitched my fabric to itself. How? Again, no idea. I cut around the tiny piece of fabric and now it's just a fun little anecdote on the back of my embroidery.

Fauna from Animal Crossing! - image 7 - student project

Getting there! I started adding dimension to her fur with 3s and 4s of my dark and light brown tones. You can kind of see that her ears are two different colors of pink, but I think if I were to choose again I'd go with an even darker pink for the inner. I decided not to go back in with more shading in the ear, mostly because by this point my hand hurt.

Fauna from Animal Crossing! - image 8 - student project

And here she is! Kind of edited but I wanted to be able to see the different threads better. Her eyes are couched threads, her cheeks and nose are satin stitch. (Also you can see where my air erasable pen refused to lift off my fabric — the packaging told me to test it and I didn't, let me be an example for you).

I am so proud of my lopsided idiot deer best friend. I sent a picture of her to my friends with the lyric "look 4 the girl w the broken smile </3" and I stand by that. I'll definitely be trying more embroidery in the future. Thanks, Danielle, for such a great class!

Kaye Toal

Senior Content Producer @ Skillshare

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