First an apology (and an excuse) for the lack of output after announcing a design challenge! Since I posted my first result on Monday (the robin redesign), I thought I would try for the Monday every week. Then I got caught up with hedgehogs, so I only started on Sunday (stupid), and needless to say, even by Monday evening, I didn't have anything to post.
I felt that it wasn't really in the spirit of the thing to be cross about it, and just throw in the towel and say, "oh well never mind then!" so I persisted in looking at it this week and I finally got it done yesterday. So here, without further ado...
The brief was to create a sort of furry border around the edge of the footpad. It's a bit difficult to describe. This is a picture of Leon's feet (below). The problem doesn't show up very well because he is quite fluffy, but when you have short fur and trapunto toes (like Leon's here), the foot pad is pushed out in a convex shape when the foot is stuffed, and the toes start to look too prominent.
Below is the existing design I started with, pre-challenge. Again, the problem would have shown up better with short mohair but I chose this because, whilst mohair is expensive, I don't get on with this particular mohair very well - and I have loads of it (of course)!
Below is the 'after' pic - with border. I do like this; it's very teddy-like somehow. However, the challenge did make me appreciate the old design more too(!) One of the problems with the border is that it uses up space on the footpad, so it would be difficult to squeeze trapunto features (like Leon's in the first picture) on there now, without making the foot bigger. And that would make it out of proportion with the leg. I could always make the border narrower, I suppose, but as you can probably see in the top picture, the trapunto design takes up every bit of space there is - any reduction in space at all is going to be difficult. Maybe trapunto toes and a border just don't work together.
And here are the alternative leg designs side-by-side, as if attached to a bear. What do you think - any opinions? I would love to know if you prefer one or the other!
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