works of artist, Rebecca Scrivner Lemmon: January 2012

Cross Stitched Aussie Pillows(abstract, using multicolored yarns)
I had so much fun doing the cross stitching below of my dogs that I decided to make some more pillows; this time for our bedroom which is a very colorful room! I didn't want to duplicate the dog pillows that I made for the living room so I purchased some brightly colored checkered material and selected some multicolored/rainbow yarns of different weights and textures. I'm using a different yarn on each of the 3 pillows.

First I went to the computer and found the photos of my dogs that I wanted to use for my design. Then I sketched them out in a simple line drawing and used the fill feature on my photo editing program to create a solid fill. This needed to be done in order for the graph creating program to recognize my drawing as an object. A line drawing does not work well with this program.

Next I went to the site http://www.microrevolt.org/knitPro/ to create my graph of each of the 3 dog designs. After printing out my graphs, I then counted out squares on my material to find the center point of my design. I did the same on the graph paper design. From there I simply begin cross stitching. I find it is easier to start from the middle and work your way out.

These pillows are quicker and easier to cross stitch as I am not changing colors. You do need to keep cutting yarn and re-threading your needle because if you use too long of a piece it will twist and turn and knot on you.

The design is turning out interesting, but I wish that the color variation of the yarn was not as spread out. The dog/design is almost 1/2 one color and I had wanted it to be more multicolored. If I do any more (in addition to these 3 pillows) I will probably choose NOT to use a multicolored yarn, but a multicolored embroidery floss or cotton thread. Or, I could possibly cut my yarn pieces and choose to set aside some of these pieces for another project, in other words moving on to each color change more often.

To the left is the drawing/graph I used as my guide and the beginning of my stitching.

Below is the piece now finished. Next I will be doing the other 2 dogs in a similar fashion, just using different multi-colored yarns to have different textures for my pillows. Once that has been completed, I will make the pieces into pillows!

I have now finished 2 of the pillow x-stitch pieces and am about halfway finished with the 3rd and final pillow....for a while at least! I'm ready to start back on my "owl room" :)

on left, pillow with x-stitching finished and below is pictured the graph I followed for my design.

And this is the 3rd pillow still in progress along with the graph I used for my design. If you look closely at the photo (click to enlarge), you will see I made x's in each of the squares to make it easier to follow my design. These don't show once you've finished your stitching. I didn't do this on the first pillow and quickly learned I could go a lot faster with the design marked
clearly!

Pictured below is the graph I used for this design of my dog.

Cross Stitched Aussie Pillows (realistic, using embroidery floss)

Finished Patchwork/Cross Stitch Pillow of Black-Tri Australian Shepherd

The reverse side of the pillow; has buttons so it can be removed and washed.

The crocheting didn't go well with the designs (see post below, Crocheted Aussie Pillows). Even though I was careful to not drop or add any stitches on each row, the piece was coming out of shape and the design seemed to be off. I ripped it out 3 times and started over but still was not happy with the result. Sometimes those things just happen. I didn't want to feel as though I had wasted my time with the designs so here is what I decided to do.
I went to my sewing room and found some scraps of checked material. I was fortunate to find three colors (one for each dog design) that will look perfect in the room where I want to use the pillows.

I am using the graphs below as my guide for the stitches, and the photographs of the dogs for the colors. Since I am now cross stitching the pillows, it is easier to use more colors. (When I originally wanted to crochet the designs, I was trying to limit the number of color changes I was going to have to make.)

I found a great place http://www.microrevolt.org/knitPro/ to create the graphs for you FREE, but you can't limit the number of colors you want to use. If you want to use less colors, you will have to make some adjustments on your own after you've made the graph or else create your graph using the PHOTOSHOP method I mentioned earlier in the post "Crocheted Aussie Pillows".

The project is turning out great and I will probably finish the pillows in less time than I would have with the crocheting. I'm a little disappointed that they won't be crocheted, but I have some crocheted pillows and an afghan that turned out well of the owls I was working on earlier. So, maybe this is just as well.

Pictured above are the completed cross stitch pieces of the 1st and 3rd dogs shown below....they haven't been made into a pillow yet, just put them against a pillow for the photo.

I am pleased with how these two turned out. Now on to the last dog.....
UPDATE....last of the 3 dogs cross stitching is now also completed as you can see to the right.

Next step is to assemble them into pillows!

photographs used

graphs

Crocheted Aussie PillowsI've grown a little tired of sewing, painting, and crocheting owls so now I'm working on another bedroom.....the one themed "Australian Shepherds"! Since, as I've mentioned before on this blog, the Australian Shepherd is my favorite breed and I have been collecting Aussie items for the past 25+ years. I just need a few new items to finish off the room.

I've also recently started back my love of crocheting. So for this project I decided I wanted to crochet some throw pillows for the bed that were of my own dogs. However, I wanted them to look "fun" or possibly "funky", so I had to go through a few steps to come up with the actual "plan".

Here is what I did -

(1) found a photograph of each of my now living dogs (there are 3) and uploaded them to my computer and opened them in fotoflexer.com.

(2) I used the fotoflex.com software to turn my sketch into "pop art". It gave me 4 different color blocks of the dog's photographs (sort of an Andy Warhol look) see below.

(3) I wanted to use only one of the color blocks for each of the dogs and wanted to use a different color for each dog. So I cropped and then enlarged as shown below.

(4)Next I had to turn each of the photos into a graph. I used Photoshop.

(5) After you've made your graph you have to write down the color changes carefully so you can follow the pattern. There are other ways to achieve a picture crochet but the way I am doing mine is to work the design as though I am looking directly at the photo/graph, the way I would read (right to left). This means for example on the first picture above, I would be working my first row in a bright green all the way across for several rows. After I finish each row, I ch 1 and turn my work so the next row has to be worked the opposite of the last. You work left to right when you crochet but we normally read left to right so if your directions are written out as you read, you will have to alter your instructions accordingly. Is that confusing? I'll try to see if I can find some better instructions of how to crochet using a graph and post them later.

Pictured above is the1st picture I took of the crocheted pillow. I kept working on this project until I was completely dissatisfied with the result. I decided to go back to the drawing board and do something else with the designs/graphs I created of my dogs. See post above"Cross Stitched Aussie Pillows".

What a Hoot!

I've had an obsession lately with making things to "theme" the bedrooms in my house. I think it's my friend Molly's fault! While visiting her home recently, she took me to see her guest bedroom that was filled with all types of sheep and lambs! Molly LOVES sheep, almost as much as she loves her sheep herding dogs, which is how we became friends. We have the same breed, the Australian Shepherd. Molly's room had stuffed sheep, sheep pillows, sheep pictures, sheep quilts and throws, sheep figurines and anything that she could find with a sheep on it! The room was precious!

I actually have 2 or 3 bedrooms that I want to "theme". The first one is going to be with owls - I just love owls! Many years ago, my late husband and I rescued a baby owl that had fallen out of it's nest which was in our very wooded backyard. We took him to the bird sanctuary in our town and asked if he was ever to be released back into the wild, that he be returned to our yard where he could live with the other owls there. The next day we learned that he had cataracts (supposedly very common problem) and would never have been able to see well enough to catch his own food supply. We were told he would have to live his life at the Sanctuary where he would be in a safe habitat and fed by the staff.

Approximately 10 years later, while at an arts festival in the country, about 25 miles from my old neighborhood, I ran into a woman with an owl on her shoulder. She was walking around the festival informing the people about the bird sanctuary and what they did for the birds and animals that lived there. I

walked up to her and told her about the owl we had rescued years back. She asked me where we had lived and I told her. She then said, "this is Chancey, YOUR owl!" I was so surprised and happy to see him again. He was now all grown up. The last time I had seen him he didn't even have feathers yet, he was all down and fluff! My husband and I had named him in the car on the trip to the sanctuary. We thought Chance would be a good name for him since he was going to have another chance at life. The woman said she had kept his name but added the "y" to it. She said she ended up loving him so much that he didn't really live at the sanctuary, that he came home with her every day! I'm so glad Chance/Chancey met up with her!

The picture above left, is Chancey resting on the lady's arm. I took this picture the day I saw them at the festival.

So, you're probably wondering what I'm planning to do with the room, how I'm going to decorate it with owls. Well, I'm sewing pillows with owls , painting pictures of owls and crocheting stuffed owls and crocheting an afghan/throw with owls. It will still be a while before it's finished but I will update this post throughout the process. For now, I have more plans than I have time but I'm having fun....and that's what counts, right?

Felted Owl "mini" Pillows

Pinterest is such a wonderful site! It has given me so many ideas. Here is one my daughter, granddaughter and I used this past week.

Scrappy Owls

http://littledeartracks.blogspot.com/2010/03/scrappy-owls.html

Owl Paintings

My granddaughter spent the holiday weekend with me and we had fun drawing and painting some owls together-literally. It was fun!

This is the piece. I want to do something with it for my owl themed bedroom but I haven't been able to figure out what that is exactly, yet!

This is the watercolor

my granddaughter did of her "love owls"!

Next is the watercolor I did.
I'm not quite finished because I can see the makings of another owl in the background...I'm going to work on that next time I get the chance.

Well, once I started working on this piece I went nuts, well actually I just had fun with it. I put in the other owl, but then I put more design on the main owl as you can see below.