After a tough day of working away at the computer drawing stitches on Illustrator and writing the text for lotsa stitches guides, I rewarded myself with some serious stitching time last night. From the last time you have seen the birds, I am almost finished with the “coffee bean” stitch using ThreadworX 10382 Fine Wine. It just needs the addition of a purple bead in the open square. The leaves are starting to come to life as they are done in basketweave with Splendor S1107 & 2 colors of Planet Earth silk aptly named Fern & Fiddlehead! The black is to be done in French knots to add some texture to the leaves.
I have two more sections of the birds to add these fabulous stitches that Brenda Hart selected, their eyes, leaves and the two plumes. Brenda has suggested to stitch plume #2 all in Kreinik using colors 24 & 24HL, but I feel that is too much of a good thing in one place, so I may not do that. I am sure that I will be bringing this to Dallas with me next week, so I will ask Sharon G for her opinion and expertise.
It is supposed to be a rainy weekend here in San Diego, so I am planning on staying in and getting allot of stitching done! A few more stitch guides need my attention and also finish up my taxes. and until next time…keep on stitching
This is very beautiful, Vicky. I am enjoying watching it unfold. Never would have thought of adding French knots to the black lines on the leaves. That Brenda Hart is SOMETHING!
It is looking great.I noticed in the beginning you had different stitches on the beaks. I like the same stitch on all three. It is a good stitch, in scale and unifies the piece. I think of you had different stitches on the beaks, it would have been a tiny bit confusing to look at. Same goes with the stitch on the three birds heads. Unifies the piece.
SharonG will be waiting to see it and talk about some suggestions for #2’s plume. I agree, all metallic would toss it out of balance. But, in defense of Brenda, it is often hard to see it finished and changes usually are made along the way. My thoughts are to include a floss in with the metallic to balance the plumes and to use the sme proportions of metallic to floss as in the gold plume. The trick is to find a stitch that will also balance the non-motion of the stitch in the gold plume. Same for the blue plume. I think the motion will happen when you add the gold and black back in. Whatever you do needs to not fight this.
This is a great piece and you are really thinking it through. Love the threads and just the right amount of touches of beads.
Every time I see the Birds they become even more beautiful than they were before. How does that happen? It’s not fair…I have promised myself I wouldn’t add more pieces to my “waiting to do” list and now you have made me break that promise. I have to have this piece!