A New Fish Joins The School

I've been experimenting with creating stuffed fish for children's toys.  I decided it was time to add another fish to the collection.

This fish is a Regal Angelfish, another colorful Indo-pacific species.

The process begins with a photograph, again one of my own.

Using Floriani Total Control embroidery design software, I'm able to define lines and regions from the photograph and then figure out how to embroider them.  Since the fish is more orange than any other color, I'm starting with plain orange fabric.

Once the embroidery design is complete, I end up with a file like this:




Now all that remains is to sew it out.  Easier said than done.

 Things went wrong on this attempt.  The hoop hit a wall and the sewing machine lost track of exactly where it was at.    The registration of the various pieces is now wrong, since the yellow ring is supposed to go around the black circle of the eye.  There's no fixing this, it's a do-over, after moving the machine farther from the wall!

This attempt looks better, but a closer look reveals new issues.

When the design was scaled up from the size of the photograph to the size desired for sewing, the white stripes and black edges acquired some distance between them.

If you didn't know this fish, you might not think this was a problem, but I'm a stickler for my fish.  This problem had to be fixed with quite a bit of work back in the design software.

Finally, all the pieces came together and I produced a good fish and it's mirror reverse, for the opposite side.

I just sew these together, stuff them, and there's a good toy for a baby.  It's 100% washable, with nothing to fall off and get swallowed.  Lots of kids get Teddy Bears, but how many end up with a very realistic stuffed fish?  Only a few.

Come back next week for a new home decorating project.

This blog has been on hiatus while I dealt with moving to a new house.  it will continue weekly in the future.