A Gift a Day Gift Seven: The Pinkie Pie Pillow

Right *puts on legal cap* first a disclaimer *clears throat*.  I in no way own or claim ownership of Pinkie Pie or any of the other characters in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  They are owned by Hasbro and I in no way claim ownership of them physically or intellectually.  So please, don't sue me.  Thank you.

Right *throws legal cap over shoulder* now that is out of the way, let's get to the gift.

This is, by far I think the biggest piece of embroidery I've done to date.

My niece, like my daughter, loves My Little Pony:  Friendship is Magic.  Originally I was going to try and get her some My Little Pony toys for Christmas, but then that darned lack of money reared it's ugly head in a big way, so I tried to think of an alternative.

And then it came to me.  How about making her a throw pillow for her bed that was one of a kind and I KNEW no one else would be able to give her for Christmas, so I wouldn't have to worry about duplicate gifts and would hopefully make her feel a bit special that someone would make it for her.

And I sure do hope she feels special receiving this thing as it took me a good long time to embroider in all of that crazy curls in her mane and tail!

I looked up a coloring page of Pinkie Pie online to use to eyeball the outline of her and then I went and looked up the original picture the coloring page was based on online to get all the detail work right.

The material for the pillow is some bleached muslin I bought a while ago (I wait until it's really cheap like .99 a yard and then I buy like 18 yards of it.  I use that material as my work horse material to make table cloths, dish towels, cloth napkins...you name it).  I did end up buying some pink embroidery floss to match Pinkie Pie's mane and tail color (thanks to the gal at Jo Ann Fabrics for pointing me in the right direction), but ended up using pink embroidery floss I already had for her body color, eyes and cutie mark, so that saved me a bit in the money department.  I also had the stuffing for this, so that saved me money as well.

I drew the character in pencil onto the material by eye and then outlined in stem stitch.  I filled in with varying lengths of satin stitch to give me the best coverage and give it a smoother appearance.

Humorously I had mental conversations like this as I was doing this in between taking care of sick kids last week:

Mental Voice 1:  "Why, oh WHY did I make her so big???"
Mental Voice 2:  "It's looking good, though."
Mental Voice 1:  "Yes, but it's so BIG!"
Mental Voice 2:  "Gee, you know, it would be really cool to do like a full sized tapestry type of landscape next.  I mean this is fun and challenging!"
Mental Voice 1:  "Shut up you!!!"

Me, crazy?  Yeah, probably.  But I do amuse myself ;).

Total Cost To Make Gift:  About 1.00 for embroidery floss.

Total Time to Make Gift:  About 12 hours.  It was time consuming.  Looks good though, I think.