Snow Queen

This idea came to me from a friend. She wanted to know if I had any wintery pieces. After thinking about it, I remembered a snowflake piece, and another small piece of a girl in a parka. I decided I needed to make a wintery face. I searched for photos online of beautiful women, and drew a few ideas. At first I thought I wanted her to look up at the sky, but after drawing this face, I knew she was right. Winter looks you right in the eye. She is bold, not bashful, yet cool, thus she would be shades of blue.

July 5, 2021

My original thought was to shade her facial features with stitches, but after embroidering the outline of her eyes on a courthouse steps block, I decided she didn't need the shading.

I thought she should have curly hair so the snowflakes could be catch in her hair, but I wasn't sure what stitch to use to create the look of curly hair. I looked online to see what other people have done to embroider an afro. Most of the things I saw were a solid background, and then curly highlights. I asked my friend, Sonja, an expert illustrator, how she would draw curly hair. She suggested lots of loopy circles. Aha! I experimented with a couple ways to make these loopy circles and they weren't working with my embroidery, and so I finally went with large open chain stitches to create waves.

But of course, one layer of curvy lines was not enough to create the illusion of depth.

Ultimately she had three layers of curls.

I wanted her to have a braid, but she ended up with a loc with silver "beads."

Where to go next was difficult. I really wanted to use silver thread and create a snowflake crown, but the thread was difficult to work with. And even worse, after all the work, it hardly showed the sparkle I was looking for. I did a lot of stitching, and unstitching.

After another consultation with Sonja, I added some baby hairs on her forehead.

While I debated how I would add snowflakes to her hair, I started filling in the background with snowflakes.

I experimented on another piece of cloth and decided I liked the look of this snowflake made with chain stitches and straight stitches. I was amazed the plain white thread added just the right "sparkle."

I played with the idea of adding beads. . .

. . .or sequins, but they either didn't show up, or looked tacky.

And so, no beads, or extra stuff was needed. She was done.

Snow Queen, July 15, 2021

Back facing, Snow Queen.

Once she was finished, she let me know she is  in need of three identical sisters. 

One will be for each season of the year.

They will all be mono-chromatic as well. 

Now I need to figure out what ONE color represents each season.

Any Ideas???