one stitch leads to another

If you're a longtime reader of this blog, you may remember Tissue Boxes of Christmas Past: the Dove and the Target characters I stitched in felt. I had such a great time making them, that I was thrilled when I was asked last year to work on a new set of felt appliquéd boxes. Thrilled! I created the following designs for review. They are wrap around designs, meant to cover 2 vertical sides of a cube shaped box and then repeated on the other 2 sides. I worked long and hard on these for many weeks and enjoyed making every stitch.

And although they received much love and appreciation, ultimately the company went with another concept from another artist. I was crushed! I was so looking forward to seeing my new little felty friends out in the world. But it was not meant to be. So I wrapped them up and put them on a shelf, wondering how I could use them in another way.

I recently cleaned my studio and found them sitting patiently on a shelf. I thought about printing and selling them as a set of Holiday cards, but the time/effort/cost equation didn't add up. I bounced around a few other ideas but ultimately decided that I would share them and my short little story of rejection here with you on the blog instead.

I truly wish this post was about how you could go buy your very own felty illustrated box of tissues at the drug store! But life doesn't always turn out the way you want it to and things could certainly be worse. Who knows. One stitch leads to another. I'll keep these in my portfolio of work and maybe someday I'll find myself illustrating a book with my felt artwork. I can dream! :)

Seeing these has reminded me to get back to my felt tips series, Felt Lore. I've got so much to share! More soon, I promise.