Ed Emberley-inspired fox embroidery!

Steven and I recently rented Fantastic Mr. Fox, and ever since then, I have been obsessed with the idea of stitching up a little fox embroidery of my own. 


That's when I remembered that I still had a copy of my cherished childhood book, Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Animals. When I started thumbing through it, I knew I had found the inspiration for my next piece.


Ed Emberley is an American artist whose work appears in over 50 books. I adored my Ed Emberley instructional drawing books when I was growing up, because they showed me, step by step, how to create pictures using simple shapes and lines. 


Here's the cover of my book:

(Do you notice that some naughty child colored in the ear and tusk of the elephant in blue? Let the record show that I am pretty sure it was my younger brother, and not me, who was responsible for this act of defacement. But let's move on.)


Here's the inside:

And the back cover:

And here's Mr. Emberley's beautiful fox:

I had some felted wool laying around that I had taken from a thrift shop sweater, and I decided to create my fox on the sweater pocket. Felted wool is definitely my favorite fiber to stitch on. Since it is hard to sketch out a design on wool, I drew my idea first on the Sulky Solvy water soluble stabilizer that I got last month, and basted the stabilizer onto the fabric. I didn't shoot any photos of this, but I loved working with this stuff, and will absolutely use it with all my wool stitching projects from now on. It washed right off in warm water when I was done -- easy peasy!


And here's how it came out:

Here's a closer view:

And his little face. 

After I stitched the fox, I thought he looked like he'd enjoy some flowers. Here they are:

As the Fantastic Mr. Fox might say: 


"That was pure wild animal craziness." {whistle! click click}