Hey everybody, you didnt ask for it but Im back with another round of “How hard can it be?” the recap of a new craft with your host Lyleberr!
This time on the update we have our most recent e4 secret santa gift for the wonderful @canalavecollectibles , a “Punch Needle” Wailord (Which i guess Ive been calling wrong as Needlepunch)! What is Punch needle you ask? Well it is pretty much how some carpet and rugs are made. Thread is punched back and forth through a fabric to make loops on one side. Unlike a carpet, these loops can be cut to leave a soft felt-ish design. Special hollow needles are used to get the thread in and back out, unlike in embroidery or other styles.
So as always Have some photos of what Im talking about and then we’ll jump into it in several steps that you can ignore if you’d like.
Final
Prototype
Summary
Step 1: Concept
As always, a concept goes a long way. I wanted to do something different this year and bumped into an acquaintance buying a punch needle kit and thought that it seemed neat, afterall its just string right? What could go wrong. Next I settled on using the Vivid Voltage pose because, with all the art styled cards recently released, I felt that the pose of Wailord really looked like a massive ship and needed to be done as an old WW2 propaganda style of poster to really bring the focus and colors to Wailord.
Step 2: Materials and Design
Primarily embroidery supplies (fabric, hoop, and floss) and a Punch needle. Simple right?
If youve never been to a place with embroidery floss then youre in for a treat… unless youre undecisive. Since I had the concept, now I needed to get the design down to pick my colors. I went with something striking that used a lot of colors in the art deco style but also matched Wailord. Ultimately this led me the wrong way since it was too dark. I had to eventually come back with my new colors (most of them different) to lighten it up.
Craft store shopping
Design
Color concept?
Step 3: Process
Design and materials are locked in, originally I wanted it a bit more detailed but this is a less detailed craft so I had to nix parts I couldnt have. I started with bordering, this helped me keep things straight and now worry too much about scale. I will say that the kits all have a design that is maybe 3 inches by 2 inches with a pattern to follow, very simple with less than a dozen colors. Unfortunately I enjoy hardmode on crafts and decided to make a 6x7 pattern using about 20+ colors of floss. I did all the color match by sight and memory since I had to match with what was in stock and what would match in theory.
Layout
Border
Color Key
Color match layout
Thread your punch needle using a loop tool to pull the thread through, then pull it through again from the side so that every time you punch through the fabric, the floss will get caught and pull through the needle when pulling it back out, to make a look on one side and essentially a stitch on the side you are working. Its a bit of a learning curve on how to do this without having the floss pull back out and undo your stitch as well as how to get spacing right. Every punch will make a loop and that fills more space than the side with the stitches.
The process
So many punches
If youve got it, cool! Now do it a jillion more times! I used about an 18count fabric which is about 18wide and 18 height threads per inch, I did most of the first by punching through between every thread, about 4500 whoops, its actually about 13000 punches (not including any slipped punches). This makes the loops too compacted and is overkill in confined areas.
Ran out of floss in a few spots
I switched through the colors according to the pattern and tried maintaining shadows, highlights, and other details in the splash, while still making a gradient in the background. The colors I chose made a great gradient… unfortunately it was so subtle that it blended many of the places and the details were actually lost. Bet you couldnt tell that over 20 colors were used in this.
Finally after all that punching its time for the detail that I hated the most. In true punch needle, the goal is to make it soft and fuzzy by cutting each loop that was made so that only embroidery floss strings would give a very soft feel when touched. I began this task and realized what I was up against. With so many loops intermixed I tried cutting them with some embroidery scissors but found that each piece of floss has 8 threads wound together, each needed to be cut and if the threads separated it made it difficult to cut the loops. After a couple hours of cutting, cleaning off shavings, and trying to get everything, I found that it would take hours and hours more to truly complete this.
At this point I found that I didnt like the colors and I didnt feel comfortable sending a partially cut up craft, so I filled in the rest after grabbing more floss so I could at least pretend it was done as a prototype and while I was grabbing more floss decided to get enough to start again with different color choices. Another 18ish colors, more fabric, and I was out of time. After forcing time to happen (although late for secret santa), I was able to complete the punch steps (this time I remembered to mirror the image) and do some quick flourishes to add a little to the memory. I threw it into a display pinback frame that opens from the back and frontside and off it went to its recipient.
New color key
Prototype cleaned up:
In case you were wondering about the back
Nice and neat front
Overall lessons: Fun to do, very repetitive, follow online suggestions about doing a section and cutting the loops right then before moving on, start small, and maybe dont pick a pose that reminds you of a meme halfway through.
