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Hi, so I am starting my first "real" project. It's going to be a gift for my boyfriend's mother, who loves sunflowers and collects santa clauses to put out at Christmas.



Since the pic is kind of blurry, here is a link: http://www.everythingcrossstitch.com/su ... k2=c115r10" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

You can see my amaaazing progress in my siggy.

So, one thing I don't particularly care for is the lower trim of Santa's coat. I love the sunflowers, and the white is important bcs it's Santa, but it kind of looks like a skirt to me, lol. So, I was thinking about changing the green to red. I think this will better incorporate the trim into the coat.

What do you guys think? Would that look good? I keep meaning to buy some colored pencils and see if I can draft it up on my own, but opinions from experienced stitchers will help too!

I guess the green on the coat's trim is supposed to be leaves, though it doesn't quite look like it. I think it would look fine to use the red, but you might want to get the colored pencils and make a copy of the picture and color it in to make sure you like it better in the red. What a perfect Christmas gift that will make for someone who loves Santa and sunflowers. I would never have thought such a pattern existed and if I were looking for it I would probably never have found it.

Carole

Thank you! I literally did a search for "sunflower" and "christmas" and it came up!

I know, it would take me two seconds to get a box of colored pencils, and I'm putting it off like crazy. It means a lot to hear that you think it would work!

You are making good progress. You know that you could start a SAL and we can follow your progress there. I am looking forward to seeing your updates and what you decide to do about the color.

Carole

What if you took out the green and the white and did the whole thing in the same red as the coat with the yellow flowers. So there wouldn't be a "break" in the design and look more like the flowers on his hood. I think its the break that makes it look like a skirt, rather than a coat trim. Or maybe keep the green leaves and change the white for red.

I agree with taking the red coat all the way down. Would take the skirt effect away

Ok, thanks for the feedback! You guys don't think taking the white out (as well as the green) would take away the Santa-ness?

I don't think taking the white away would make it less Santa-ish. I'd take both the white and the green and replace them with the same red as the coat.
At the moment I agree it looks a bit like a skirt, with a red coat over it.

I agree that you don't need the white since it doesn't really look like fur at all. And it is very obvious that this is Santa. As long as you keep his beard white it will work.

Carole

Do the coat red and put the smaller sun flowers round the bottom like on the hood then you could put a white trim on the bottom

I also like the idea of taking the red coat all the way down.

You could even add a few rows of black around the middle to make it look more like a belted coat if you wanted. I like all the ideas everyone has mentioned.

Wow, thanks for all the input guys!

I would rather not make the sunflowers smaller or anything, just because I'm still very very new to this and would be worried about messing it up somehow. However, I like the idea of bringing the red all the way down, adding the sunflowers, and then doing the last two rows as white.

And i think a belt is a good idea, but it's probably too late now since I've already stitched half the coat.

To be honest I think you can do what ever you want with this really.

As the pattern isn't what maybe we would call classic santa. If you know what I mean.
So saying that you don't have to match it to the "real man" ( yes he's real!!!! )

What ever you change about the pattern will look right as it's a fun Santa design.

You could always stitch what you had in mind on a scrap piece of aida first to see how it looks. I do that all the time.