Cat Houses and Hagrid's Hut

Weird title, I know, but that's what I have been up to creatively. Alpha Stamps is hosting a Mad, Mad, Mad House Swap where you decorate five chipboard houses and get five in return! All of the info can be found here, and I'll post the houses I receive from others sometime in March. So on to the houses!

Those chipboard houses are the cutest things, and they're really sturdy, too. I found the kitten stickers at AC Moore for $1. What a score! The rest of the stuff came from Alpha Stamps, including all of those awesome collage images.

The other thing I completed went to a dear friend on Craftster, for a swap called IYP 28 Winter Wing Ding. While getting ideas, I ran across this image of Hagrid's Hut:

original image property of Stuart Craig

and knew right away that I wanted to free-motion embroider the drawing. It has that sketchy look that I love, and I try to emulate that when I hand embroider things. But this image seemed like a good candidate for another go at free-motion embroidery, my second attempt, and I thought it could always be pitched if I screwed it up and then just hand embroider the thing. From having done it once before, I decided to order a darning foot for the sewing machine and save myself a lot of fidgety hassle. Man, that made a HUGE difference! And I didn't sew over my fingers. Yay. The finished piece fits into an 8x10 frame (I sent that, too. Who wants an unfinished project?) and stole this first picture from the recipient.

photo courtesy of tapestrymlp

this one's mine. can't you tell?

Lessons learned-

1. Breaking down and spending that whopping $9 on the darning foot made free-motion embroidery so much easier. Who would've thought?

2. Sewing shadows is hard. 

Now for the best part of this post. Look what I got in return!!!! My partner hand painted a scene from "The Three Brother's Tale" where Death is presenting the Elder Wand to the first brother. It is truly a work of art. Thank you, tapestry!