A lotta 'lotls!

After a long weekend of thread tests we may finally have the Axolotl nearly dialed in.

This was far more difficult than I was anticipating, with most of the time taken up with just trying to find the right balance of colors.

I started by cutting the embroidery file in half and just running samples with various colors looking for the right contrast so the design didn't washout. That took through Monday.

Once I had the colors sorted out I began adjusting for details and distortion in the stitches. I decided to start with the Small Chapeau scale as it would be the most difficult (aside from a mini-fez) and run in less time than the fez scale.

The latest of them is in the center and is about 90% there. The highlights around the nostrils are still off a bit but after 4pm our electricity cost triples so we try to avoid running machines in the evening.

And yes I did use glow thread for the highlights.

This was actually part of the difficulty as I was locked into a specific base color and needed to find contrasting threads that made some sort of sense. Anything too pale just blended into the base color.

I may try some other color variants of this design in the future.

After a few more tweaks and another couple tests I should be able to make samples and get them on the website.