Moose Antlers Up Close

Just so you get an idea of just how much sewing I did. This was the most consolidated area of stitching, but it goes on throughout the rest of the antlers.

Moose Antlers Finally Finished

Whew! These babies took me about three months. Now, I now what you may be thinking, they look so simple. I know they do, which is why my next post has a close up. Originally, when I started making these, I was just going to do the cut out shape and call it a day. But they looked so boring with just cream. I decided to add some texture. So I found this nice, dark brown thread I had and held it up to the cream. I loved the way it looked, the colors complemented each other and looked kind of retro together, like a 70's vibe. I began to sew striated lines coming out of the middle of the antler, and coming up the edges of the antler. I made each line different from the one next to it. Some are short, some are long, some are curvy and some are straight. I bunched them real close together towards the middle and spread them out as they got longer. I really love the way the pattern looks. But, when I started doing it, I realized almost immediately I would need to do more of the antler than I had originally thought. And let me tell you, these were a bitch to sew. They took forever! I was going to do the backs and the fronts of the antlers in this pattern until I realized just how long it was taking me. I decided no one should see the backs anyway, so why not just leave them blank? I kept thinking of putting down this project to do a simple one, hoping that would ease my frustration with the length of this one. But I knew if I put them down then I would never pick them back up. When both fron sides were finished, I thought the rest would take no time at all. I was only a little wrong. It turns out the backs were much larger than the fronts and I had to carefully cut them back down to size. After that, I found a nice gold thread and started doing an outside stitch all around the antlers. The three colors really complement each other nicely. I really want to use these babies as couch end pillows but my dumb dog loves to eat all of my sewed stuff! I might give them to a friend or just mount them on my wall somewhere. Anyway, I'm really proud of these. I did take some time to do some drawings while I was working on these but I haven't posted them yet. Maybe tonight!

Next project: Toucan!