School of T&E: Studio MCA Ski Chick

A few weeks back I bought this plain pink hoodie jacket for fall/early winter for Olivia with plans to add something special to it.  Over the past few months I have been a member of Applique Forum.  Through AF I met Studio MCA Designs owner, Melissa.  She has since become a favorite source for embroidery blanks and packing supplies.  I am just starting to stitch out some of her designs and expect to be doing a lot more because her Christmas line "Jingle Jungle" is adorable!!  

But back to that jacket....  After looking around quite a bit DH and I decided to go with Melissa's Ski Chick!  

As mentioned before I am very new to applique and learning by trial and error along with help from the wonderful members and sponsors at Applique Forum.  Part of the purpose of this blog is to serve as an outlet for documenting my learning process.  I think it will be fun to look back on these challenging times later on so I want to keep track of them!

My main error made with this design was wanting my chicken too fluffy.  I added flannel below the fabric to puff him up a bit.  Somehow that resulted in his body lifting up when the stitching was going down and a small hole occurring where that happened.  I went back and stitched by hand to secure him after the fact but I wish now that I had not added the flannel and I think it would have gone perfectly.  Either way the design is absolutely adorable.

First is my finished product and then following the chicken with hole and subsequent hand stitched chicken.