I made this snail hoop for @ilovesnaills in the Go Bananas Swap.
I had so much fun making it! I got the idea from this pin of a rock mosaic:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/504121752042130965/
I simplified the design a bit, and cut out the brown felt outline with all the little “windows.” Then came the fun part of choosing fabrics to fill them!
I decided to go for a kind of earth tone pallet for the body part of the snail, and chose a bunch of yellow/green/brown fabrics from my stash. This was such a great project for using tiny bits and scraps, but I also spent a lot of time choosing EXACTLY the piece of bigger fabrics that I want to cut out and have peek through those windows, and getting them at just the angle I wanted, etc. I sewed each one onto the back of the felt separately, before attaching it to the hoop, which was a bit of a challenge because it was so floppy that way, but I wasn’t quite sure how else to do it since I was choosing pieces as I went along. I did the shell the same way, but with blue/purple/pink colors.
After all the fabric bits were attached, I sewed the whole thing down to the hoop, and picked out a few fun buttons to add some finishing touches. I know snail eyes are actually on the tops of their stalks, but I thought this eye just looked so cute!
Here are a ton of progress pics:
And last, here it is with the little snail feltie I sent along with it:
I’ve gotta admit, it was REALLY hard to mail this hoop away! I absolutely fell in love with it while I worked on it! I definitely want to make something similar for myself someday, perhaps a turtle or a fish, using different fabrics for shell panels or scales!
