Bunny | Mr X Stitch

3d cross stitch rabbit I’m a big geeky fan of geometric shapes, and if you’ve read my previous columns you’ll know I am lucky enough to have some beautiful wild rabbits where I live. So my good pal Sam (aka the free motion embroidery whizz Stitched Up By Samantha, check out her Etsy page here) really hit the nail on the head when she bought me a geometric rabbit cross stitch pattern as a gift. One of our beautiful wild baby bunnies (Pic: Neil Burgess) The pattern (shown below from Etsy) was by Velvet Pony Design, based in Russia. The designer, Mila, says her greatest inspiration for her work is nature. She loves to spend time outdoors watching birds and animals, and looking for beautiful plants. She only started designing full time five years ago and her creations are beautiful. You can see her Etsy page here. The bunny pattern is also available as a kit you can find here First of all I went a bit rogue with the colours I chose. When I printed out the pattern I absolutely loved the guide colours it was printed in, so I went to my thread stash and matched colours to that instead of using the thread colours the pattern suggested. First of all I sewed the main part of the head. Pardon? Can't hear you? The main head of the bunny minus ears At this point I looked at his cute little face and thought about the wild bunnies in my garden. Part of the fun is watching their ears, the efforts they go to to clean them, the way they wiggle them all the time, they are just so adjustable. So I thought I’d make my bunny’s ears adjustable too. I really wasn’t sure if my idea would work, so I was quite nervous that the time I spent sewing the first ear onto a separate piece of fabric might end up being a waste of time. I sewed it on 18 count Aida fabric. Doesn't every crafty plan involve a pipe cleaner, a rabbit and some felt? So as you can see above my idea was to cut around the separated ear, back it with some felt (bought from the lovely Craftyangel) and pop some pipe cleaner in there too so it was fully adjustable, just like a real bunny. You probably know I hate pins and love clips, they were great for this project! Carefully I stitched around the ear to attach the felt. Then it formed a nice pocket which I put the pipe cleaner in. I then sewed the bottom of the pocket closed. One little bunny ear pocket ready for the pipe cleaner to go inside Next I attached the ear to the head. Not sure I breathed much during this process because I had come this far and didn’t want it to go wrong at this stage! One ear complete - it worked - phew! One more to go... Then I did the same with the second ear. Second ear complete and ready to attach to the head, so glad I'm not a vet! And here he is! My finished framed 3d bunny. And I can open him any time and wiggle his ears about or bend them over to make him look different if I want to. Here he is! I'm really pleased with how he fitted in the frame, look at his little face! I really enjoyed making this 2d project 3d, and many thanks to Mila for letting me share how I made it with you all. Thankfully Mila approved of my 3d piece, and I’ve shown it to the wild rabbits and they seem to approve too :-) Have you done any of Mila’s lovely projects? I’d love to see them if you have. Cost Pattern: A gift from a friend, so free Threads: From my stash, so no cost there either Pipe cleaner: From my stash, so no cost there Felt: £5.50 for a lovely Corinne Lapierre pack, used about £1 worth Frame: £5 Total cost: £6 Best cake for this project: Carrot, obviously! Best song for this project: Rabbit by Chas and Dave