7/09/2010

Another Blog Buddy Swap!

Over the course of blogging, I have been lucky to meet many incredible, talented people. One of them is Steph Dillon. I first came across Steph's work when I participated in the Great Granny Square Swap back in March. Steph designed the amazing granny logo that I used on my free pattern booklet!

It took a while to work up the courage, but one day, I finally asked Steph what it would cost to get her to design something for The Itsy Bitsy Spider. She responded that she wanted a dust kitten made up to look like her sweet Fuji and went to work. A few weeks later, I received this in my email:


I was flabbergasted. I mean... how incredibly amazing is this!? I got to work on Fuji immediately.

Now, of course, it would just be too easy if Fuji was an ordinary black cat. No, Fuji had to be one of the most challenging kitties I've worked on to date:


Good grief... what an amazing, beautiful cat!

I headed to my yarn stash only to find that my favorite gray yarn for dust kittens was nearly gone and set out to do some shopping. That was when I discovered the world-wide clearance on Red Heart Designer Sport. It took some doing, but I finally got enough gray yarn to make up one dust kitten, and I got started.

I hated it. The finished dust kitten did not look like Fuji at all. The highlights for the eyes were in the wrong place and the dark striping had come out too dark. Don't get me wrong -- it was still a cute dust kitten, but it was NOT Fuji. So, I began looking for gray yarn once again. I found the LAST ball of gray yarn in the Cleveland area after hitting four local craft stores and I started on Fuji once again. This time, I also used some amazing hand-painted cat eyes from Clara at 6060 and viola!


With any luck, the little one will allow me to get to the post office today so that I can send Fuji home to Steph. And to Steph -- thank you so much for the swap and the great challenge!

5 comments:

  1. OMGoodness, *squeal!*
    I love the pic Steph did for IBS...it's awesome and your dust kitten Fuji is PERFECT! Love, love, love!♥

    ¸.•´¸.•´¨) ¸.•*¨)
    (¸..•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`-: † :- Anita
    http://aseknc.blogspot.com/
    http://asesgwamh.blogspot.com/
    aseknc(at)gmail(dot)com

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  2. Thanks Anita & Midnightchalk! Steph is just brilliant and so inspiring. You should totally check out her other work! ==> http://sdillondesign.wordpress.com/

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  3. I can't wait to get my Dust Fuji! Thank you so much for the kind words and for putting so much effort into making Fuji so perfect :)

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  4. Steph -- you have to let me know when dust Fuji arrives... I'm so excited to see how you like him in person!!!

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