Raccoon Embroidery - Taking a Break from the Joys of Motherhood

 I've been stitching away at my raccoon/zentangle/embroidery piece.  It's slow going but very soothing and portable.  I am using the word 'zentangle' loosely.  It's probably not strictly a zentangle but more of a doodle.  Here is the progress so far.  I had to extend the picture somewhat because I wanted the finished size to be 8 x 10".    It is really good practice in stitching.   I can see why young girls were taught to do 'samplers' back in the old old days ( not that I would approve of that kind of fixed gender role for women:)  I've had to think of what type of stitch worked best, and even tried some french knots.   At times I wished I wasn't so free and easy with the twists and turns of my pen.  Here's a close up.

I used double thread for the main lines, then switched to single threads to fill in.   I may use green threads for the background since I painted the leaves green but outlined them in black.  I am also using black single threads for the veins of the leaves. So a little colour in the background might be the thing to do.   I have another zentangle of a mermaid that would look good in multicolours of embroidery thread......


And here are a couple more photos of the pesky creatures who inspired this experiment.  I certainly don't encourage them because they are pretty destructive but they are darned cute!!