Leila’s new face

Despite my rusty embroidery skills and thanks to YouTube videos by Mary Corbet on how to create satin stitches, padded satin stitches, outline stitches, and French knots, I was able to complete the new face for Leila. I didn’t expect to complete it in one evening but am so pleased to have it done and she doesn’t look too strange. I haven’t had a chance to iron her face or cut the actual face piece out but that will happen tomorrow when my eyes are rested. All stitching was done with my glasses off after watching a video or two before starting particular stitches. The colors don’t show up real well but the eyes are brown with white highlights. The eyebrows, nose, and freckles are also brown. The mouth is a pale pink outlined with brown. All threads are DMC–white, #151 – pink, and #838 – brown. Here’s a slightly closer picture: I’m still not sure why the colors are not showing up better. I learned that I much prefer counted cross stitch to embroidery, HOWEVER, I can embroider if I am patient and if I can watch a video or two to make sure that I obtain the look I want. Thankfully Mary Corbet’s videos are very easy to understand and follow.

Next up: Cutting out face piece; sewing head, arms, and legs together and attaching all parts to the body of the doll. Oh yeah, I guess that means I had better remove the bad body parts that I am replacing. This will have to wait until tomorrow afternoon or evening as I have laundry to do and energy cookies to make in the morning. I’d also really like to make some homemade cookies, but time will tell. Now I’m off to get some rest and see if I can sleep past 4 AM or 5 AM.