My husband, Todd, often describes himself as the black sheep of his family, so when I saw this pattern on Urban Threads, I knew I needed to stitch it for him! Since he does so much for me, I wanted to give him a surprise Random Act of Crafting, so I had to do this when he was at work.

I used a fluffy black floss for the sheep body to give it more of a sheep-like look. I used linen fabric for this project, which I hadn’t worked with before (I bought it for this project, that I haven’t yet started…). I like the finished look, but I didn’t really like stitching on the linen. The pattern didn’t show through very well. I didn’t realize I would need to press harder on the stylus to make the carbon paper leave a better impression. This meant I needed to draw in parts of the pattern with a pencil after I had moved the carbon paper away. Linen is a lot more like aida cloth than cotton, so the weave was looser and bumpier, which means I was fighting over where I’d insert the needle.

To finish off the piece, I hot glued jumbo rick rack to the outside of the hoop. Since the rick rack was so big (It being jumbo, and all), and the hoop was so narrow, I folded over the rick rack and glued it to the front. I think it looks pretty neat. I could have painted the hoop, but, am I the only one who doesn’t like doing this? I mean, it looks good, but it is such a pain to paint a hoop! I need to research if hoops come pre-painted…

I used this photo light tent to take the picture. It’s the first time I’ve used it since I got it for my birthday. I also got this light tent at the same time, but when I picked it out, I didn’t realize how big 2′ x 2′ x 2′ would be! I like this smaller one, although I have a suspicion that the smaller, the better when taking pictures with this smaller tent.

I have to be careful to make sure I don’t leave this tent on the floor…I can see my Chihuahua or cat thinking this was the perfect hiding spot!