Embroidery techniques to try: Fake Fur Texture

I often make popular character pins and bag charms. My favorite Sesame Street character is Oscar the Grouch. Ernie was my favorite as a kid though. I decided to try to make a scruffy textured Oscar brooch or pin. To start I did the outline, eyes and mouth in standard seed bead embroidery.

bead embroidered Oscar the Grouch pin

Then the fun new part of filling in Oscar's scruffy fur with fake bead fur textured stitches. I strung different counts of beads to vary the length of each strand for that scruffy uneven feel. The beads are strung from the base material out to the end bead and then the needle is run back through the beads back to the base material except the last bead. This turns the last bead away from the base material a stopper bead.

beaded Oscar the Grouch brooch Oscar the Grouch bead embroidered pin

I started with the brown eyebrows. I noticed as I began that my white Nymo thread was distracting. I'm too cheap to buy colored thread so I used markers to color it green. I probably should have used brown for the eyebrow fur but all I had on hand was a green marker - so green it is!

Beaded Oscar the Grouch

Once I finished his eyebrows I moved onto the rest of the fill: green. Being able to vary the bead count on each stitch definitely made it less boring. Usually on my fills for bead embroidery it gets boring and I often leave many projects unfinished because I get bored. It makes me chuckle when I get bored and set aside a project because that song by B.B. King always comes to mind..."the thrill is gone!...."

Finished Oscar the Grouch bead embroidered pin or brooch

As you can see, this varied fake bead fur technique attempt paid off. My Oscar the Grouch ended up looking like a scruffy furred character. He doesn't even look like he's made out of glass beads! I hope his owner enjoys him. He became my favorite Sesame Street character after hearing Dave Chapelle's joke about him "Bitch, I live in a garbage can!" LMAO! I knew right away after hearing that joke that I HAD to make a beaded Oscar the Grouch.