An All Blacks Scarf

OK, so this scarf isn't for me or for Mr N, it's for a teddy bear!

Mr N has a ted (his name is Ted) which was given to him by his mother not long before she passed away. Ted is important and very special, since he brings back fond memories.

When we were packing to come over to New Zealand, we decided that Ted was important enough and portable enough for him to stay behind and then travel over with us instead of going in the container. So Ted has now been to Las Vegas, Boulder, CO and San Francisco. (I will admit that now if I have a slight homesick moment and Mr N isn't around I have a teddy bear to cuddle! I don't care if I'm too old to admit that! :-) ) I have to say, he was quite an eye opener on our journey over! The Air New Zealand staff were brilliant though even offering baby harnesses for him! :-)

Ted (with his old red scarf) and Mr N at Los Angeles International!

Anyway, we have full residency visas in our passports and it was decided that Ted should have his own silver fern, so I made him a new scarf!

I downloaded a silver fern image from the net and traced the ouline on tissue paper (the only tissue I have here in NZ is some I got when I bought some shoes the other day, hence the logos!)

 Silver fern image

I used some black velvet from a sample in my stash. Using an embroidery hoop, I followed round the edge of the pattern with back stitch.

Once I had an outline, I removed the tissue paper to leave just this outline of the silver fern on the black velvet.

Now to fill in the blanks!

I wasn't sure whether to fill in the fern with satin stitch or some other way. In the end I went for some kind of feather-type stitch. Now I'm no embroiderer, so I don't know the names of all the stitches and I certainly won't win prizes for the finished fern, but it looks good from a distance!

  Some of the fronds came out better than others.

So to finish off, I had to straight stitch by hand the length of the fabric in the absence of a sewing machine. (You can guess one of my first jobs once my machine materialises!) Anyway, we now have a very proud bear with his own silver fern!

  Say hello Ted to all your followers! :-)

PS Last time I checked, our container was somewhere in the China Sea, it's certainly going the long way round! Oh and I start work on Monday, new job, new country... It's going to be a bit strange - wish me luck!