Made the First of Many

OK...now that my first penny rug is officially complete this is what I'm thinking....

First off, is that what I call should it, because I seem to be lacking the pennies? Not that I mind, I actually made a conscious desicion to do just that since I wanted to keep the it simple. My goal is to have the geranium in the pot above it to be the focus...not the needlework. Unfortunately my greenthumb is currently on vacation leaving poor geranium far too embarassed to be photographed at this time.

I do, however, want to give those pennies a try which will not be a problem since I intend to make many more felted wool creations in the future. I have no doubt at this point that the act of stitching one piece of wool to another is quite addictive!

But there are a few details I will be better aware of in the future.

LEAVES for one.

Although I cut them out in fairly decent "leaf" shapes, I seem to have stretch them into green blobs during the process of blanket stitching. Perhaps a stem line down the middle first would help them keep more definition???

And BACKING for two.

I'm not sold on using fabric for the backing. It has a very unfinished appearance to it in that the edges look frayed. I've since peeked around a bit on line and see the vast majority use felted wool for the backing. I'll give that a try next time....but first I've the rest of the month to finish up with this lot fabrics. Project #2 starts tomorrow!