A pillowcase for Simon

Earlier last month I gave you a sneak peak into a project I was working on with crayon and stranded DMC cotton for my nephew's birthday. Simon turned 6 on Friday and here is the pillowcase I made him with all of his favorite things embroidered on it to encourage sweet dreams!

 

As you can see, he really loved it! So did I. It was one of those rare projects that turns out even better than the vision in your head.

I first conceived of this project last year with a poem I made up:

Simon says, "It's time for bed!"

Simon then lays down his head.

Simon will have happy dreams

'til the sun again does gleam.

I printed the words on my computer and then embroidered them in back stitch with 3 lengths of stranded DMC cotton.

 

Then I looked on the internet for coloring book pages of things Simon likes. Trains were his favorite thing for years, but they now pale in comparison to tigers! And since my sister and brother-in-law own a cottage in the Adirondacks, hiking is a big part of his life. I traced these images onto the pillowcase using a light stand. Because the pillowcase was white I was actually able to see the lines through both layers of fabric.

 

I then colored the images with regular crayons. At first I colored too lightly and had to go back and color them again. Some people have told me to color with a white crayon first or with fabric crayons, but regular crayons work well. The pillowcase went through the laundry once with no loss of color.

 

Once they were colored, I sandwiched each image between two pieces of printer paper and ironed them on the cotton setting to set the color and melt out the wax. Then I embroidered each motif.

 

Sleeping Simon is outlined with two strands of cotton in stem stitch, with details in chain and back stitch.

 

The mountain lake is just stem stitched, with back stitch for the sun's rays.

 

The train was going to be outlined like the rest, but I got carried away! The freight cars and caboose are satin stitch with straight stitch and french knot accents, but the engine body is mostly stem stitch, with some chain stitches thrown in for accents. It took longer to do than I envisioned, but turned out so much better than I had hoped.

 

Finally, the tiger is all stem stitch. First I outlined him with two strands. Then I filled in the stripes with three strands. I really wasn't sure how he was turning out until I put in his green eyes. Then I knew he would work.

 

This was an extremely fun project to stitch. It was like being a kid myself to color these images. AND since two pillowcases came in the pack, I gave the second one to Simon to color for himself. I'll embroider it and send it back to him.

Happy birthday Simon!

 

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